I believe the Captain (with/without concurrence from their HC) correctly calling the coin toss, has the option to select his choice (to kick, receive or choose a goal to defend) or to "defer" (make that choice prior to the second half KO). He DOESN'T get to choose for both half's. He gets the same 3 choices for the second half regardless of what the opponent chooses to begin the game. (K, R or D).
If, after choosing to defer, the opponent gets the SAME 3 choices for the 1st half, and should that opponent then choose to Kick, the coin toss winner can only choose to Receive or Defend a goal, and the original toss winner gets to choose "which goal to defend", while maintaining to exercise his (full) choice for the 2nd half.
Al, this is NCAA football, nothing else. The UIL (Texas) has no exceptions to the coin toss procedure (other than that the coaches may choose to have the coin toss between themselves at some time other than 3 minutes before scheduled KO).
Whether coaches or captains, the first thing that happens is the coin toss itself, which ONLY determines which team will have the first choice of options for the kickoff, itself. Before there was the ability of a team to 'defer' their first choice of kickoff options, the winner of the coin toss had the first choice of the kickoff options for the first half, and that was that.
For some time now, the winner of the toss has had the ability to elect to have their first choice of kickoff options for the first half, or may elect to 'defer' their first choice of kickoff options to the second half kickoff.
So, after the team with the first choice of kickoff options is determined (first half or second half), by rule, that team has two options to choose: 1) To designate which team shall kickoff (making the other team the receiving team, by default), or 2) select the goal line they will defend in that period.
That's it. Not three options. Two (2).
Now, many people have morphed that into a dumbed-down statement: The team with the first choice can choose to "kick, receive, or defend a goal." In most cases, that proves to be the effect. But those are NOT the actual choices to be made.
Yes, during the toss, if the team with the first choice says, "We'll receive," we simply know that they actually mean they are designating their opponent to kick off (after all, if they want to receive, their opponent has to be the one kicking off). Then the opponent has the choice of which end they will defend.
I have had a team choose to kick, as their first option. And they truly wanted to kick. They had a very good kicker, and a very good defense, and felt they could get great field position by pinning their opponent deep in their own end of the field. But, of course, by choosing to kick, they gave up the ability to choose which end of the field they would defend. They didn't care. The wind was very mild that day, and would not have affected their kicker much. But, we knew that is what they wanted, by asking the HC before the coin toss.
We should not be pointing fingers at the officials in the coin toss case that started this discussion. The blame should be placed squarely on the shoulders of the person responsible for teaching their players the game of football, which includes the rules of the game (of which, the coin toss is part and parcel). That person is the Head Coach. If he teaches them the rules, then we won't be having to conduct a mini-clinic on the coin toss and kickoff optipons before the coin toss, or, worse, during the coin toss procedure. Oh. He doesn't know the rules, you say? Well, how can he fix that problem? Anybody? Anybody? Bueller?