Someone Please Advise. Heres what happened to me last Friday night. I'm working as Head linesman. We have a fourth and 17 at K's 13 yard line. K's punt goes over the extended neutral zone, however, it was an extremely short punt with the ball bouncing on K's 23 yard line and angling straight for my sideline. K touches the ball, inadvertently, on the ball's way back up after the bounce. R then makes an attempt to catch the ball on its way down and muffs it. K recovers the muff. I made the call that, because of the first touching, R gets possession. Which is the right call. However, I have had other seasoned and veteran officials tell me that even if there was no first touching in that incident that it would still be R's ball because the ball did not cross the line to gain. My question is, If you have a PSK that does not pass the line to gain and is muffed by R and recovered by K, does K retain Possession??????
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