The Official Forum - freekick play

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A friend of mine ran this scenario by me yesterday. Must admit, I've never really thought about it this one before. But he says there is a caseplay in the NFHS casebook on this.

K is freekicking from R's 20. And K20 kicks attempts an onside kick. The untouched freekick rolls OOB at R's 5 yardline. What would R's options be?

Well, we know that R normally has some options in this situation. One would be 5 yard penalty and re-kick. Another would certainly be to just take it where it went out, the 5. But they also normally have the option of taking the ball 25 yards in advance of the kick. Here's where the problem arises. In this play, 25 yds in advance would be in the EZ. Now, without having talked to my friend and hearing about the caseplay, I'd probably say R could have a touchback here and we'd put it on the 20. But its my understanding that the casebook just deletes the 25 yd option. Here's the thing, thats cool if thats what the casebook says. But where would we find support for this in the rulebook?

Sure, this scenario would not be very likely to actually happen in a game. But I'm just curious what you guys think.

DrMoore

Quote:

Originally Posted by DrMooreReferee

Yes, this is very interesting. Does the touchback have in its definition, a free-kick that goes out of bounds?

We have the same options, and problem, in the Canadian ruleset.

How about the lesser of 25 yards, or ½ the distance? This is consistent with other penalties when they're restricted.

So in the case above, how does it sound if the ruling should be B 1D/10 @ B-10.

Well we can't have a half-the-distance on this play because only for penalties are we allowed to use half-the-distance. Penalties are specified as either 5, 10, or 15 yards. The 25 yards is an awarded spot and not a penalty distance. 6-1-8b specifies that the ball must be put in play at the inbounds spot 25 yards beyond the previous spot. 2-41-4 basically says that inbounds spots are between the goal lines. So that tells me that if it is impossible to have an inbounds spot 25 yards from the previous spot that the option is not valid.

And by the way, to have a touchback the ball must become dead behind the goal line, 4-3-2. In this play the ball became dead at R-5.

REPLY: Look at Case Book play 6.1.8 Situation H. It's clear that the option of taking the ball 25 yards in advance of the previous free kick spot is off the table and only the other two options remain.