Reddings guide illegal participation

[NEWOFFICIAL]

Im struggling with with an issue from the Reddings Guide....Page 38 2007 edition....PASSING GAME ....

Receiver A 83 runs along sideline takes two steps out of bounds and jumps while in air (a ) catches the ball and lands inbounds...(b) bats the ball to A87 inbounds who catches the ball....while A 83 lands out of bounds...

Ruling in both a and b the ball remains live and the catch is legal...In ( a) A83 is guilty of illegal participation....

How in (b) is the catch legal ..and isnt A83 guilty of illegal participation on that as well ?

[waltjp]

FED 2-29-1

ART. 1 . . . A player or other person is out of bounds when any part of the person is touching anything, other than another player or game official that is on or outside the sideline or end line.

In your example a player who is airborne is not touching anything out of bounds so the player is not considered out of bounds. The bat is legal and because A83 did not return to the field of play he is not guilty of illegal participation.

[NEWOFFICIAL]

THANKS ..Ive yet to find any official I know get that correctly.....it seems there has to be a foul on this play... yet there is not ?

[NEWOFFICIAL]

Every official i pose this to says...NO WAY...I appreciate Walts response..and Ii believe hes correct...does anybody else have anything else on this ?

FED RULES PLEASE

[waltjp]

Further Reading:

NFHS Forum: tough sideline call

NFHS Forum: Coach's special play discussion

[BktBallRef]

Originally Posted by NEWOFFICIAL

Every official i pose this to says...NO WAY...I appreciate Walts response..and Ii believe hes correct...does anybody else have anything else on this ?

FED RULES PLEASE

It's different than basketball. In basketball, your status is the same as where you last touched the floor. So a player who is OOB remains OOB until he touches inbounds and is not touching OOB.

In football, a player who is not touching something OOB other than another player is inbounds.

[ajmc]

Originally Posted by BktBallRef

It's different than basketball. In basketball, your status is the same as where you last touched the floor. So a player who is OOB remains OOB until he touches inbounds and is not touching OOB.

In football, a player who is not touching something OOB other than another player is inbounds.

The interpretation, that a player who has already established himself as being OOB can continue to affect a play by simply jumping into the air is ridiculous. The sensible and logical way to deal with this is simply to consider him OOB (whether he's on the ground or over it) which would simply make the ball dead when he touched it.

To suggest that a player who would catch a ball, while touching the ground OOB is somehow different than someone who has touched the ground OOB and subsequently jumps in the air is way to hard to explain and keep a straight face.

A player is inbounds until he goes OOB, and remains OOB until he comes back inbounds.

[kdf5]

Originally Posted by NEWOFFICIAL

Im struggling with with an issue from the Reddings Guide....Page 38 2007 edition....PASSING GAME ....

Receiver A 83 runs along sideline takes two steps out of bounds and jumps while in air (a ) catches the ball and lands inbounds...(b) bats the ball to A87 inbounds who catches the ball....while A 83 lands out of bounds...

Ruling in both a and b the ball remains live and the catch is legal...In ( a) A83 is guilty of illegal participation....

How in (b) is the catch legal ..and isnt A83 guilty of illegal participation on that as well ?

The 2008 Redding Guide contains the same play. Here is the next paragraph:

"In the preceding example, the receiver was not out of bounds when he touched the ball since he was airborne, and not touching out of bounds when he contacted the ball. He is, however, guilty of IP (9.6.1D 2003 Ed.) which is discussed in Chapter 10".

In the play he says (a) is IP and (b) isn't but in the explanation in the next paragraph I quoted above, he says "He is guilty of IP" but doesn't distinguish whether he's talking about only (a) or both (a) and (b). Maybe someone has the '03 Case Book? But in the meantime I think I will go with Rogers Redding and George Demetriou and their 70 yrs of experience.