Free Kick Play

[The Roamin' Umpire]

Originally Posted by Bob M.

MJT asks...we deliver. Both Fed and NCAA can chew on this one.

PLAY: Following a safety and a penalty for a dead ball foul, A free kicks from his 10. His punt is nearly straight up. It bounces at A’s 14 and rebounds untouched back into A’s end zone. There, A1 muffs the kick out into the field of play. B2 then muffs the ball while attempting to recover. The ball is subsequently recovered by A3 at A’s 6 yard line. RULING: ??

WOW - what a great case play! I'd never thought of anything like this before...

So, first my reaction without looking at a book (NFHS rules):
I'm curious if the definition of first touching requires a touch in the field of play. I'm thinking not, so we have first touching by A in their own end zone. (If there is such a requirement, this one's easy: A 1/10 @ A6.)

I'm thinking there's no way this can be a touchdown - that (with one exception, which this isn't) requires possession of a live ball in the opponents' end zone. I also don't believe that this is a safety - first touching is not a foul, and the ball was not declared dead in the end zone.

In theory, B has the right to take possession at the spot of first touching. But I'm pretty sure there's a rule that says the ball cannot start a play in the EZ, and some sort of provision for moving it out if for some reason it would. So my ruling on the field would be: B 1/G @ A 0.1 (i.e. just outside of the EZ).

Now to the book...
... where we have (surprise!) a conflict. 2-12 says first touching must be in the field of play. 6-1-6 has no such requirement. Again, if 2-12 is correct, this is easy: there is no first touching, and A gets the ball. If you go with 6-1-6, you've got some thinking to do...

I can't find any rule about not snapping the ball in the EZ. (I guess they thought they wouldn't need one. ) So I suppose, if you rule first touching in the EZ, then B takes over inside of their own EZ. Technically, they need to snap the ball to score their TD, but I wouldn't bother with that. Seeing no other alternative, if we decided 6-1-6 was right, I'd award the TD. But I don't like it.

So, how do we decide which definition of first touching to use?

5-1-5e is the only other rule I saw that mentions first touching, and it's no help - all it says is that R is awarded a new series if K is the first to touch the ball "before it has gone 10 yards." I could certainly argue that the ball has gone 10 yards, and just as easily argue that this rule clearly means forward 10 yards.

Normally, I'd go with the definition that's in rule 2. But that result really doesn't seem right either. Team A has clearly screwed up in just about every way possible on this one; I see no reason to reward them with the ball. Therefore, I'm going to "rule in the spirit of fair play" and award team B a touchdown, unless someone gives me a really good reason to do otherwise.