Free Kick going out of bounds
 

Free kick from K's 40 yardline. The kick travels 25 yards and is bouncing toward the sideline. At the sideline, the ball takes a hop and travels across the plane of the sideline but does not touch the sideline or the ground out of bounds. Just then, an airborn R player who jumped from inbounds catches the ball and lands out of bounds. Ruling?

My first reaction is freekick violation---freekick kicked OB.

R touched the ball. Put the ball in play where it crossed the sideline. The rule says "untouched by R". Touching is defined as touching or being touched by the ball. Since the ball wasn't OB and neither was R it's his ball because he touched it before it was OB.

Not so fast kdf5, see casebook 6.1.8.C. Now it is a little different, but the location of the ball relative to the sideline makes a difference.

6.1.8c supports kdf5 - situation "a" pretty much describes this play - R was still inbounds when he touched the ball, so he is the one who made it be out of bounds.

I've mentioned this on another board, but I may as well harp on it here as well. I don't disagree with your ruling, but where in the rules does it define "inbounds"?

It's like the rule book says: if it's not stated to be illegal then it's legal. Same here. If it's not out of bounds then you assume it's inbounds.

Rule 2-28-1, 2 and 3 defines out of bounds which, in turn, defines "inbounds."

The location of the ball is only relative if the receiver touches the ball while he is OOB. Then it becomes an issue of whether the ball had broken the sideline plane when it was touched.

In this play, the airborne player who touches the ball is inbounds, because he left the ground inbounds and has not yet touched OOB.

kdf5 is correct.

Hey, the original post is just a copy and paste of my post on two different forums. Is that cheating gtwbam? ;)

We have been back and forth on this on the other forums and this is what I come up with. For Federation ball, the location of the ball only matters when the player that the ball is out of bounds. For instance, if he is contacting the sideline, then it matters where the ball is at. If the ball is still over the field of play, the R player caused the ball to be out of bounds, so no kick OOB. If the ball is still airborne but beyond the side line plane and not yet hitting the ground when R touches it, the interpretation is that the kick caused the ball to be out of bounds when R touched.

This is from the Football rules differences, 2006, page 108.

Now, in the orginal post, since the player is not out of bounds (since we can't find the definition of in bounds), he contacted the ball so he touched the ball in the field of play. Any time a R player touches a free kick prior to the ball being declared out of bounds, R will put the ball in play at the out of bounds spot- in this case, the spot where the ball crossed the sideline.

REPLY: For NFHS, the sideline plane doesn't figure into this play since R was inbounds when he touched the kick. The only time that you need to assess the position of the ball relative to the sideline plane is when the receiver is touching OOB when he touches the kick.