Another potential Illegal Participation play

[l3will]

My preference would be to sell illegal participation in this case since K99 was
out of bounds a long time and took himself out of the play and by touching
the ball in the field of play... he participated.

2-30 Participation - Participation is any act or action by a player or non-player that has an influence on the play.

As I said, your opinion may vary

You may not agree until the lawyers at NFHS cover this situation explicitly,
but that is what I think.

You may award the ball to R at the one yard line, but I think that might be a
harder sell if the kick was clearly bouncing toward the goal line.

[Mike L]

Regarding the unfair question....are you going to allow R to block this guy while he's OOB? Because if you don't, you've given this player a free run down the field to make a play.

[Warrenkicker]

Originally Posted by Mike L

Regarding the unfair question....are you going to allow R to block this guy while he's OOB? Because if you don't, you've given this player a free run down the field to make a play.

That's a great point, for plays that can be made within a couple of feet of the sideline. At higher levels I think it is a personal foul to go out-of-bounds to block this guy. However at NF level I think the only thing we could call on R is illegal participation because he would have to intentionally leave the field to make this block.

So for K1 to intentionally go OOB and never return is extremely dangerous for K as the only play he can make is very near the sideline. If the punter can put the ball on the ground within a yard of the sideline then he can just as easily put it OOB at the same spot. So while K may not be technically breaking a rule, though some will say they are not within the spirit of the rule, they are taking a huge chance with this play.