Excuse the basketball official asking the silly question in a football forum.

Situation from high school playoff game last night...daughter is a cheerleader for the school...and it happened twice.

Offense is in punt formation.

First situation...defender breaks through the line, jumps up into what he feels will be the path of the ball. Blocker in front of the punter hits him at the waist and the both move backward toward the punter with defender on the back of the blocker. The defender then falls over him and into the punter...hitting him around the knee while the punter is off the ground.

Second situation...two defenders break loose from the side, both taking an angle that would appear to take them in front of the punter. Offensive player pushes one of the rushers deeper into the backfield (apparently in an attempt to force him behind the punter). That block causes him to fall into the leg area of his teammate, which causes him to collide with the punter just as the punter lands...basically the offensive player blocked two defenders.

Both times the referee called roughing the kicker. I am sure the punter felt roughed, because he was really nailed both times. However, I thought it was not a penalty if the defender was blocked into the kicker.

Please explain the rule here and the application. Other than these two plays, I would give the crew an A++...and that was through the eyes of a fan. Offended team scored TD's on both drives after the penalty...daughter's school still won on TD scored with 0:38 left in game.

Thanks for your help.

Hard to say without seeing it, but here's the definition -

A defensive player shall neither run into the kicker nor holder ... other than when:

a. Contact is unavoidable because it is not reasonably certain that a kick will be made.
b. The defense touches the kick near the kicker and contact is unavoidable.
c. Contact is slight and is partially caused by movement of the kicker.
d. Contact is caused by R being blocked into the kicker or holder by K.

Sounds like condition d. may have applied but if the defender, after being blocked, saw it as a free pass to hit the kicker it should probably be flagged. I'd also be very careful if I thought the defender deliberately threw himself at the kicker’s knee.

Thanks waltpj.

I know it is hard to make a decision off what someone else saw. I doubt they had time to think this was an opportunity to take a free shot as it happened so fast...but that may be the case...I've learned that anything is possible when it comes to HS kids.

My first thought was maybe there was something in the rules that said if, in the referee's judgement, the R would have still made had the kicker had the block not taken place it was still roughing. Basically, a player leaps to make a block and it would have been impossible for him to land without hitting the kicker.

These are the "you got to be there" calls but they both sound like roughing to me. I'm more sure about the second one being roughing than the first one but like I said you have to be there, just like trying to describe a block/charge call.

One thing is the wings need to help with this, if they see a player blocked into the kicker they need to tell the R, because the R's responsiblity is the kicker, so he is not watching blocks around the kicker.

Larry, will you be joining us next Fall? :D

LarryS
If you are in Texas, they play by NCAA rules and the being blocked into the kicker does not absolve the defender of contact. It is roughing or running into regardless of the block...when I first read this in the NCAA book I thought it was pretty weird, but I believe that is what it says..

That is correct. If a defender is legally blocked into the kicker of holder it is a foul on the defender. The only time the defender is absolved from fouling is when they were blocked illegally, and of course that would mean a flag on the offense.

LarryS's profile shows he is from Texas. Thus the calls were correct. In the other 48 states these may not be fouls.