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Old Wed Apr 12, 2006, 03:12pm
The Roamin' Umpire The Roamin' Umpire is offline
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Join Date: Aug 2004
Posts: 463
Take a look at 6-2-4: "Any kicker may catch or recover a scrimmage kick while it is beyond the neutral zone or the expanded neutral zone, provided such kick has been touched by a receiver who was clearly beyond the neutral zone at the time of touching. Such touching is ignored if it is caused by K pushing or blocking R into contact with the ball or it is caused by K legally batting or muffing the ball into R..."

As silly as this seems, if K illegally bats the ball into R, then R is not protected by the second sentence of this rule. Therefore, K would be the next to put the ball in play. And therefore, R's foul cannot be a PSK foul. Thus, double fouls.

Now, I've got a bunch of problems with this, not the least of which is the use of the word "kicker" in 6-2-4 (and 6-2-3). But the biggest problem is that 2-16-2g5 (the last of the conditions for a PSK foul) can be self-fulfilling: "K does not have possession of the ball when the down ends and will not be next to put the ball in play." There are a bunch of situations where, if you treat the foul as PSK, K will not be next to put the ball in play, but if you don't treat it as PSK, they will be! Whichever way you choose is right!

There are a few ways to fix it. Easiest, I think, would be to change 2-16-2g5 to read: "R would be next to put the ball in play if all penalties were declined."

Anyone know how the NFHS actually does its rulebook edits? Because I'd love to do some copy editing for them.
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