Safety or Touchback

[Bob M.]

REPLY: For Federation...

1. No question...this is a safety since you cannot add force to a kick in flight. Therefore, the force putting the ball into K's endzone is the kick.
2. A little trickier. Force may be added to a grounded kick that enters K's end zone. It's up to the covering official to determine whether or not R's inadvertent touching of the grounded kick sufficiently changed its direction so that it could be considered the only cause for the ball entering K's end zone. If so, R's force put the ball there and result is a TB.

For NCAA, Both situations will be a safety, since the ball is not at rest when contacted by R. At least, I believe that's correct.