Muff Kick

[surehands]

4th and 10 on team K’s 20 yard line. K1 kick is short and muffed by R2 at team K’s 30 hardline. The loose ball rolls behind the neutral zone and recovered by K3 at K’s 15 hardline. He is not down and trow’s a forward pas to eligible K5, but it is incomplete.
What the call and results of this play?

[smileyh]

Legal play. It will be 1st and 10 for K at the previous spot.

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[CT1]

1. A kick remains a kick until it’s possessed or dead by rule.
2. A scrimmage kick which is recovered behind the neutral zone may be advanced by either team.
3. If R is first to touch a scrimmage kick beyond the neutral zone, it will be a new series for whichever team is in possession at the end of the down.

In your play, K has fulfilled all these requirements and will have 1/10 at the K-20.

[Robert Goodman]

The only reason this is paradoxic is that a series never starts in the middle of a down. It can start only at the beginning of a down, always as 1st. So this is why regardless of what happens to that pass, it's going to be 1st down. Even if it were an illegal forward pass, the "loss of down" would be inconsequential. And all the major codes agree on this.

Also, once K3 has recovered the ball, I don't think there's any sequence of subsequent fouls whose penalty enforcement could possibly restore the previous down. Or is there?

[Texas Aggie]

NCAA: everything that happened on the play is legal PROVIDED THAT K3 had not crossed the neutral zone prior to passing the ball. If he had, both he and the ball would have been across the line, making any forward pass (from both behind and beyond) the neutral zone an illegal forward pass (See 7-3-2-e). While it is arguable that this isn't the intent of that rule, we have nothing else to go on. According to what I'm hearing the OP say, K3 never was beyond the NZ, so the pass would have been legal.

The scrimmage kick crossing the NZ breaks the continuity of downs (Rule 6), so any possession of the ball by Team A (after Team B touching) would mean they keep it. The incomplete forward pass only stands to put the ball at the previous spot for the next down.

Good luck explaining it to the Team B coach.

[Robert Goodman]

Originally Posted by Texas Aggie

NCAA: everything that happened on the play is legal PROVIDED THAT K3 had not crossed the neutral zone prior to passing the ball. If he had, both he and the ball would have been across the line, making any forward pass (from both behind and beyond) the neutral zone an illegal forward pass (See 7-3-2-e). While it is arguable that this isn't the intent of that rule, we have nothing else to go on.

That's interesting! You're saying that even if the passer and the ball had separately been in advance of the neutral zone some time before the ball was recovered and thrown, it's illegal for him to pass forward?

[smileyh]

Same for NFHS.

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