batting

[mikesears]

Originally Posted by Robert Goodman

Interesting in that the Fed result is different from NCAA's, if we take "fumbled the snap" literally, i.e. that the would-be punter gained possession of the ball and then fumbled. (He probably meant "muffed the snap", but this is for the sake of argument.) Then, because kicking of the loose ball doesn't change its status as a fumble, you'd have a fumble going out of bounds ahead of the spot where it was fumbled from, so team B would get to take a better spot if they decline the penalty in NCAA than they would get in Fed.

Robert

NCAA, illegally kicking the ball or illegally batting the ball are loss of down fouls, so team B (R) may very well want to accept the penalty unless the spot where the ball went out of bounds was more than 15 yards behind the spot of the foul.

[Welpe]

In NFHS, there is no difference between an illegal kick and illegal kicking.

[Robert Goodman]

Originally Posted by Welpe

In NFHS, there is no difference between an illegal kick and illegal kicking.

I think there are differences owing to the fact that illegal kicking does not produce a kick. IIRC you can make a fair catch of an illegal kick, but not of an illegally kicked ball, and so a bunch of consequences in the rules. The illegally kicked ball doesn't become dead on entering the opposing end zone. An illegal kick, but not an illegally kicked ball, belongs to opponents on becoming dead (by going out of bounds, coming to rest with nobody trying to secure possession, or inadvertent whistle). Please correct me if I'm wrong about these recollections or if they're outdated.

[Welpe]

Originally Posted by Robert Goodman

IIRC you can make a fair catch of an illegal kick

No you can't. You can only fair catch a scrimmage or free kick, both of which are defined as legal kicks. The rule book makes no distinction between either. In fact, the rule book only defines an illegal kick.

The illegally kicked ball doesn't become dead on entering the opposing end zone.

It does if it was originally a legal kick. A legal kick doesn't lose it's status as a kick by being illegally kicked.

[Robert Goodman]

Originally Posted by Welpe

No you can't. You can only fair catch a scrimmage or free kick, both of which are defined as legal kicks. The rule book makes no distinction between either. In fact, the rule book only defines an illegal kick.

Then I must be out of date on this, and Fed has diverged in its definitions from the NCAA code, by which only a punt, place, or drop kick were defined as "a kick". Or did Fed keep the definition of "a kick", and overlay on this a definition of "free kick" and "scrimmage kick"? Seems a lot easier to treat free and scrimmage kicks as rules rather than definitions.

Robert