NFHS Question
 

On a scrimmage kick the ball comes to rest at the 1 yard line. Both K and R are surrounding the ball when R1 reaches for the ball but never gains possession of the ball. While reaching for the ball R1 causes the ball to go into the end zone where R1 falls on it. Touchback or Safety? Thanks

What'd he do, fan on it? I can only imagine you mean he touched it, resulting in a muff. That being the case leads to an interesting situation in Fed rules. Because the loose ball was still a kick (2-25-2), 8-5-3a.1 has it as a touchback. However, the facts of 8-5-2b also apply, making it a safety. The rules don't make either of these provisions an exception to the other.

I believe they intended for the result to be a safety, because otherwise the new force R1 applied to the ball would be inconsequential, and they must've meant it to have consequences.

There is no way this can be can be a safety. While it seems 8-5-2 would apply, this is a general section dealing with overall play. The more specific 8-5-3 would apply since that's specific to kicks. A basic rule of thumb is that the specific will always trump the general.

But we don't even need to go there, since - as is often the case - this seeming contradiction can be resolved by going back to the definitions. In 2-13-4, it clearly states that force is not a factor in this situation.

ART. 4 . . . Force is not a factor:

a. On kicks going into R's end zone, since these kicks are always a touchback regardless of who supplied the force.

Given this foundational definition, 8-5-2 cannot logically apply here.

(of course, all this is leaving aside why the play wasn't declared dead when the ball came to rest on the 1)

Absolutely agree, NFHS 6-3-1: "it is a touchback if ANY free kick or scrimmage kick: (a)......breaks the plane of R's goalline, unless R chooses a spot of 1st touching by K."

NFHS: 2-24-2: a kick ends when a player gains possession or when the ball becomes dead while not in player possession." R-1's "muff" does not end the "kick".

Darn, I forgot "force" was a defined term in Fed. Fed's been abusing the Definitions rule like this for a while; since "force" next comes up only in section 8-5, this matter would be better written into 8-5, and they could probably reduce text by doing so.

Maybe because the officials saw that while all the other players are standing around looking at the ball, R1 is coming barreling in from a distance to play it.

The result of the play is a touchback, as cited above. If the covering official feels that R did this intentionally to gain an advantage, he should penalize R for Illegal Batting.

He wouldn't even have to come barreling in from a distance. As long as the covering official determines any player is attempting to secure possession the ball remains alive. What constitutes "attempting to secure possession" is a judgement call without any specific guidelines (other than the ball being "motionless"). Even the act of reaching toward the ball might be enough for the official to determine he is attempting to secure possession and thus ball would remain alive.