Illegal Snap?

[ChicagoLJ]

Had a couple youth games late Saturday. I guess in the game before me the referees were telling me there was a play where the center snapped the ball, but ran about sixty yards with it. One official thought the ball touched the QB's hands, while the other did not see a touch.

What are your thoughts on this??

[whitehat]

Rule 7-2-4 a snap shall be such that the ball immediately leaves the hand or hands of the snapper and touches a backfield player or the ground before an A lineman touches it.
I guess the question here would be did the ball leave the snappers hand. My take would be if the snapper simply held on to the ball as it touched the QB hand, then we have a foul. This would be a snap infraction and the ball would remain dead.

[Robert Goodman]

Let's say the snap was legal and completed. The question then is, how did the ball get back into the snapper's possession? All the major codes now have provisions that require considerable rigmarole to do that, rather than the old play of simply handing the ball back to the snapper the way it came.

Robert

[HossHumard]

We've seen that play a bunch here lately...it's a real pain in the arse.

In Cdn. rules, it's covered under the "hand off pass" rule. To be legal, the player taking the "pass" cannot be occupying the position of a lineman.

Thus, for it to work, the QB would have to take the snap, take a step back a yard, then the centre would also have to take a step a yard back and THEN get the forward hand off pass. This centre's snap back to touch the QB's hands and then running off with it is Procedure, a 5 yard penalty.

That's a fair bit of choreography if you ask me...tough for the June Taylor Dancers to get that one right...much less a amateur football player....

[Mike L]

One way or another you probably had a foul.
If the ball never left the snappers hand(s), it was an illegal snap.
If it left the snappers hand and if he did not turn around to face his own goal line and move 1 yd back, then when the QB gave the ball back to him it was illegal forward handing.
If it left his hand and the QB set the ball down for the snapper to pick up, it was a planned loose ball in the vicinity of the snapper.

[Canned Heat]

Originally Posted by Mike L

One way or another you probably had a foul.
If the ball never left the snappers hand(s), it was an illegal snap.
If it left the snappers hand and if he did not turn around to face his own goal line and move 1 yd back, then when the QB gave the ball back to him it was illegal forward handing.
If it left his hand and the QB set the ball down for the snapper to pick up, it was a planned loose ball in the vicinity of the snapper.

Couldn't have said it better. They've made that play nearly impossible now. I'm guessing the stripes missed that.