Football Plays to Review (Video)

[The Roamin' Umpire]

Originally Posted by jdmara

If you have it available, I would love to see the entire play with review of the Northwestern drive at 3:01 in the 4th period. It's the wild fumble into the end zone, WM recovery followed by an illegal bat (or forward pass). It ended up being called a touchback. Thanks

Video of play (but not final ruling) here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kd_ytv3tnAc

Here's what I see:
(1) Fumble clearly happens before ball breaks plane; fumble is the force that puts the ball into EZ.
(2) Defender possesses ball inbounds in the EZ, leaps, and tosses it back into field of play. This appears to be an illegal forward pass, though it is difficult to be certain of the angle.
(3) Ball lands inbounds in the EZ and is recovered by offense before they touch the pylon.

Seems pretty straightforward - decline penalty, touchdown. The question is whether the defender landed OOB before releasing the ball - the main video does not really have a good angle on this, though the inset freeze frame looks like he *does* release the ball first.