Illegal Forward Pass After Change of Possession in End Zone

[TussAgee11]

I'm a lurker from the Baseball board.

Was watching ESPN Classic today, Miami vs. Florida State from 1992 (yes, it was Wide Right).

Late in the game, FSU fielded a punt at their own 1 and momentum carried them into the endzone. As he was being tackled in the endzone, he threw the ball forward to avoid a safety. A Miami player recovered the ball in the end zone.

R ruled the ball was dead when the forward pass was incomplete. Therefore, a safety.

The nice part about all this was that Keith Jackson actually read the rule straight from the book, if an illegal forward pass is incomplete the ball is dead. EXCEPTION: if the pass comes from the endzone, the defense can either choose to accept the penalty (safety) or decline and take the play (TD).

He then commented that the White Hat maybe is using another rule or interpretation that has nothing to do with this rule, or perhaps the change of possession changes the penalty enforcement.

I thought this may be of some value on your board as a discussion on what the rule would be under today's rulebooks.

(p.s. i thought this would be a touchback, and if it is, you can change the original sitch to be caught and willfully ran into the endzone).