Punt brought out of own endzone.
 

I saw this at my son's 8th grade football game last night. They use NFHS rules.

Yellow team is punting from their own 15 on 4th and long. The punter is standing too close too his line and doesn't have room to step and just drop kicks it. The ball goes backwards over his head and lands inside the 10 and bounces in the air into his own end zone. His Yellow teammate catches the ball in the end zone in the air off the first bounce and runs it out to the 1 yard line where he is tackled. They give the Gray team the ball at the 1 yard line first and goal. Can the defense advance their own untouched punt out of their own end zone? Was that the correct ruling?

Any player may recover a kick behind the neutral zone and advance it. This is true even if the kick goes beyond the neutral zone and back.

Say the punt had landed at the 20 and then rolled backwards into the end zone. Yellow picks it up and is tackled at the 1. Same result: 1st and Goal at the 1 yard line for Gray.

Yes, the kicking team can do anything (legal) they want if their kick is recovered behind the line of scrimmage. Even if the kick had crossed the line and rebounded back behind the line, as long as it was not touched by R, K can advance the ball. The deciding factor is where the kick is recovered, not where it's been.

So if the punt does not cross the line of scrimmage anyone can advance the ball? Yellow would be credited with a touchdown if they ran it all the way back to the other end zone?:eek:

Thanks, guys!

Are you saying that if R touches the kick and K recovers in or behind the nz they cannot advance? Because they can. If R touches the ball beyond the NZ then K gets a first down if they end the down with possession, if R did not touch the ball then K has to advance beyond the line to gain.

You're right. He could have even punted again or passed the ball. And, like others said, if the ball did cross the LOS and rebound back behind the LOS he can still punt/pass/run.

Maybe he meant to say touched by K.

This just came up in the Iowa-Iowa St. game last week

Do you know the score, too? They play tomorrow and I'd love to put some money on it. I'd fly to Vegas just for that.

There was a period of decades in Fed where they'd adopted more ways a dead ball could be produced, and one of them was K recovery of the ball. ISTR from discussion at rec.sport.officiating that it was only in the past decade that that one was abolished, so maybe it's still confusing people who've watched HS football for some time.

I'd just like to have seen how a punter seeing he was too close to his line decided to drop kick instead (Like that would be easier to get off?!), and how it turned into an overhead kick. Was he leaning backwards?

Robert

That would be the Northern Iowa-Iowa game last week. Iowa-Iowa St. play this week. ;)

Peace

I can't wait to see how this plays out!
:eek:

Not like it matters...Iowa vs. some other team from Iowa that no one who lives more that 10 miles from the campus cares about ;)