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Well it looks like we have a concensus that it was a safety for both plays. That is right for both plays.
The actual play was the second one. The ball was fumbled and would not have reached the endzone. B muffed the ball twice trying to recover it and forced it into the endzone where they recovered. I was U that game and it all happened right in front of me. I ruled it as a safety. The defense's coach could have taken my head off. He had no idea how his team could have committed a safety when they never possessed the ball in the field-of-play. The basis for this ruling is covered by the definition of Force 2-13. The grounded fumble would not have by its momentum reached the endzone. B muffed the ball into the endzone and recovered it there.
I also sent this play to my state interpreter and he sent this back to me. "The key is "new" force. A ball in flight, either a kick or pass, cannot have a new force applied via a bat, muff. However, if a fumble or backward pass or kicked ball is at rest or nearly at rest or a grounded ball that is nearly at rest may have a new force exerted/applied as the result of a muff or bat. In the play you describe, if the official ruled that a new force was applied by B and that force put the ball into B's end zone and B was in possession when declared dead, a safety is the result. The key is whether or not a new force was applied and who applied that force."
When we saw the defense's coach the next week he still said that we had got it wrong until I handed him the ruling from the state.
Other officials in our area said that we should have ruled it a touchback because then neither team would have been upset. I disagree with that mentality because we are not out there to make everybody happy but to rule correctly on what actually happened.
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