Forward handing

[sanitycheck]

Hi, I'm new to this forum and have a situation I'd like to get your opinion on. At our game on Friday, the home team runs a play on kickoff returns to try and fool the kicking team. After the reception, 2-3 players run together and either hand off or fake a handoff and proceed up the field. In this case, the handoff receiver R1 was standing at approximately the 20 yard line facing his own endzone......looking backwards if you will. The kickoff receiver R2 caught the ball at approximately the 10 yard line. R2 runs towards R1 and as he gets to him, hands the ball forwards to him on a dead run. For the sake of argument, lets just say that R2 keeps his hand on the ball until after he has passed R1. My question revolves in where does the handoff occur.....as he extends it forward to R1 or does the handoff occur after he takes his hand off the ball when he is even with or past R1 making it a backward handoff. I'll let you know what was or wasn't called after I see a few responses.

[UmpJM]

sanitycheck,

The "handing" occurs when the "hander" releases the ball. If the entire ball is not beyond the yard line where the "hander" is positioned at the time of the release, this is legal.

JM

[AndrewMcCarthy]

Coach JM has it. 9 times out of 10 the answer will be right in the rules themselves.

In this case we have someone considering flagging this for forward handing so we go right to the Rule 2 definition...

Forward handing occurs when the runner releases the ball when the entire ball is beyond the yard line where the runner is positioned.

So the key is where is the ball in relation to the (original) runner when he relases the ball? I've got no flag on your play.