Scrimmage kick mess!
 

K punts. The punt hits the ground and R plays it on a hop. R muffs the ball (new force on a grounded kick). Ball is rolling towards R's goal line. K then muffs the ball at the 2 and it rolls into the endzone where it is recovered by K.

Touchdown or safety? This may be really easy and I am just not seeing it correctly. I know that R created a new force by muffing a grounded scrimmage kick. My problem lies with the muff by K. Is that a new force and if it is, would it be a touchback since the kick has not ended?

Any kick going into R's EZ is a touchback regardless of who supplied the force. The kick never ended. Touchback.

You are saying that ANY kick going into the endzone is a touchback?

Then why do we define a new force?

If R provides a new force and then falls on the ball in the EZ, would not that be a safety? Otherwise, who cares who created the force?

Without the rule book in front of me I cannot quote the section, but, it does say that the responsibility for forcing the ball across a goal line belongs to the team who kicked the ball, UNLESS a new force is supplied by R. That would imply that a new force by R, makes it responsible for putting the ball in the EZ. If that happens to be THEIR EZ, then it is a safety if it beocmes dead in their possession there.

Yes, any kick that goes into the EZ is a touchback. A kick does not end until it is possessed.

We define a new force to determine the outcome when the ball enters the EZ after the kick has ended.

I guess I am hung up on the section that says that if R muffs a grounded scrimmage kick, then it provides a new force. I read that to mean that if R muffs a grounded kick then they provide a new force.

Nevermind, I found what I needed. The whole force thing on a kick only applies to K's EZ.

2-13-4...Force is not a factor:

a. On kicks going into R’s end zone, since these kicks are always a touchback regardless of who supplied the force.

This play is a touchDOWN under NCAA rules, and force or impetus has nothing to do with it. K is possessing a live ball behind their opponent's goal line -- TD. The only way this could possibly be a touchBACK is if R possessed or recovered the ball or the ball went out of bounds behind the goal line.

I had this play last year.

So is this different from Fed?

Aggie, yes very different in Fed. A free or scrimmage kick breaking the plane of R's oal line is always a touchback, even if muffed by either team. The ball is dead as soon s it breaks the plane.

Please don't assume Fed rules. The original poster didn't specify.

Why? The vast majority of posters here only work games using NF rules. 99% of the games played in this country use NF rules.

Yep, NF: Touchback. by rule the kick was never possesed and therefore never ended until it crossed the plane of R's goal line.

Good situation. better to think through that on a forum than having to try to sort it out on the field.

This is a really save assuption.
 

And the person's moniker suggests he is from a state that only uses NF rules. So yes you can assume when most of us never work an NCAA game. ;)

Peace

And most officials who use NCAA rules will never use "K" and "R". That is generally a tipoff to me that they are referring to NFHS rules

Why? Did NCAA stop using them?