Safety or Touchback

[gberry]

This one caused a lively discussion in our association.

The LOS is K's 3 yard line. K's kick crosses the LOS where:

a. While in flight it touches R1
b. After touching the ground it rebounds off R1's leg

in both cases, the ball rebounds into K's end zone where it is recovered by K.

What do you have, a safety or a touchback?

[rickref872]

I am looking at this on an NCAA angle. It seems to me even though this sounds funny that this is a saftey on NCAA. NCAA guys help me out here. I think that impetus has not yet changed. Teh ball was still put in endzone by teh kick but the touching beyond teh NZ tells me this rule is not good. I say righteously the K should get the ball on a TB at the 20. The right ruling may be saftey though.

[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.

[dumbref]

NF
A. Safety 8-5-1 The force that put the ball into the end zone was the kick. Since it was still in flight, a new force can not be applied.

B. Touchback 8-5-3b R’s muff put the ball in the end zone. R's muff is a new force.

[dumbref]

Bob m. is correct once again. In B. that is a judgement call.

[mcrowder]

Similar play, then:

After a couple of USC's, we're kicking off from the 10. Kick is a line drive that hit's R's helmet after going 10 yards, and rebounds over K's head and out of the end zone. What do you have? (Either ruleset).

[DJ_NV]

Safety in both.

In NCAA, for the reasons mentioned above. Only kicking or batting a loose ball changes the ball's impetus (read: force in NF) if the ball is not at rest. If it is at rest, then any contact with it will be considered new impetus and therefore a TB. Of course there are a couple of exceptions like being blocked into the ball (when it's at rest), etc. but those really don't apply.

As for Fed, once the ball is grounded (at rest or not) we can have new force due to a muff. But again, it's got to be a clear attempt to gain possession. In mcrowder's case, ricocheting off of R's helmet doesn't change force, and certainly not if the ball hasn't been grounded yet. If it had been grounded, and it bounced off of R's helmet as he was reaching for it then I'd have to think long and hard about it, but if he didn't know what hit him, then he couldn't have been trying to gain possession and therefore it's not a muff--no new force so it's a safety. Just remember that in Fed, merely touching or contact is not necessarily a muff.

[stevesmith]

NCAA - we had this question on a quiz last week. Safety. K can recover, and if it were not in the endzone, it would be K's ball at the spot. But as you said, the impetus was caused by the kick, and it is recovered in the endzone, so it is a safety.