Illegal Participation, Illegal Touching, Nothing

[JugglingReferee]

Originally Posted by BoBo

Just feel like throwing out crazy plays at everybody today.

Fed Rules please (if other please note)
4th and 8 from B's48

K punts the ball towards the sideline.

The ball is going to be downed inside B's 5 yard line near the sideline.

K22 is the gunner and is going to down the ball. As the ball is bouncing K22 has unknowingly stepped out of bounds at the 4 and then steps inbounds at the 2 to down the punt at 1 yard line.

Are you going to have a flag at the B's 2 yard line for illegal participation?

Is this now considered illegal touching? Or some other violation or foul?

Or do you just let it go?

CANADIAN RULING:

There are 4 ways to have been OOB legally:

• a player was blocked to OOB
• a player tried to block someone, missed, and subsequently ended up OOB
• slipped to OOB
• stepped OOB to field a punt or kick-off

There is no indication that any of those events caused K22 to be OOB, so I do have a flag for IP.

If K22 was:

• offside:
  • Illegal recovery: Restraining Zone flag. Since both the IP (10y) and RZ (15y) are minor fouls, R has to choose which to apply. The R shouldn't even ask, so it'll be R 1D/10 @ R-16.
• onside:
  • legal recovery, but the IP is still applied: K 1D/10 @ R-11.