Quote:
Originally Posted by ajmc
The specific circumstance regarding this situation is ALL loose ball fouls, with some general exceptions, are enforced from the previous spot. Several years back, the concept of PSK was introduced to NFHS rules. Priot to that, ALL fouls committed during the loose ball (of a kick) were previous spot enforcement (decline or replay the down after penalty enforcement).
PSK was added to deal with the perceived inequity of the loose ball enforcement negating the fact that the defense had done it's job of forcing the offense to punt and causing the down to be repeated, in addition to the yardage penalty, was excessive. This was a unique adjustment limited to specific circumstances and requirements.
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And it was only in the 1970s that the NFL (in this case leading the way for the other American codes) adopted a similar enforcement that kept team A/K from turning a defensive holding foul (which was fairly common considering the more restrictive rules then regarding use of the hands and the fact that they'd be setting up a runback) that occurred during the loose ball into an automatic first down for themselves. When you realize that since about 1930 a scrimmage kick that ended on R's side of the neutral zone has been "R's ball first", it was pretty weird that K could get possession of the loose ball back because of R's foul during that interval. A rule that made sense during the era of onside kicks -- because fouls could prevent K from legitimately recovering and retaining the ball, in a way analogous to pass interference -- survived for many decades in the various codes after the rationale for it had changed.
IIRC, that was when NFL officials started carrying bean bags.
Robert