freekick play

[DrMooreReferee]

A friend of mine ran this scenario by me yesterday. Must admit, I've never really thought about it this one before. But he says there is a caseplay in the NFHS casebook on this.

K is freekicking from R's 20. And K20 kicks attempts an onside kick. The untouched freekick rolls OOB at R's 5 yardline. What would R's options be?

Well, we know that R normally has some options in this situation. One would be 5 yard penalty and re-kick. Another would certainly be to just take it where it went out, the 5. But they also normally have the option of taking the ball 25 yards in advance of the kick. Here's where the problem arises. In this play, 25 yds in advance would be in the EZ. Now, without having talked to my friend and hearing about the caseplay, I'd probably say R could have a touchback here and we'd put it on the 20. But its my understanding that the casebook just deletes the 25 yd option. Here's the thing, thats cool if thats what the casebook says. But where would we find support for this in the rulebook?

Sure, this scenario would not be very likely to actually happen in a game. But I'm just curious what you guys think.

DrMoore