Safety or not
 

QB runs the ball out of his endzone and is tackled near the goal line. At the instand his knee hits the ground the ball is parallell to the ground and the front edge of it is outside of the endzone by 4 inches but the back half is still in the endzone.

Safety or A's ball still? Does the ball get moved forward artificially if we still have A's ball so that no part of it breaks the plane of the goal line when it is snapped for the next play?

To avoid a safety, the runner has to advance the ball completely out of the EZ.

Alf is 100% correct on this one. And this has to go down as one of his shortest posts!

Unofficially that's common practice. Officially, no, which leaves the question of what to do if it's spotted overhanging the goal line for 4th down and an incomplete pass is then thrown. In TV games I saw (years ago) at least once a ball made ready for play overhanging like that as a result of rotating it after it was barely carried out of the end zone sideways.

You do not rotate the ball on change of possession. Ball stays where it is and chains are set from the NEW forward point.

Makes me think about this scenario though... ball is carried out of EZ sideways, ball perpendicular to the sideline and is completely out of EZ when runner is downed. However when rotated the back end would now penetrate the GL. Safety?

I would suggest this is one of those either/or situations we have to deal with. Either the ball is entirely and completely out of the EZ, or it's a safety or TD, depending on direction. The ball should NEVER be spotted with any part of it, in either direction touching the goal line.

No. You move the ball forward a couple inches so that no part of the ball is breaking the plane. Yes, it means the offense gains a couple unearned inches. And yes, any wing not smart enough to mark his spot far enough out of the EZ so that you don't have to worry about it gets slapped about the head.

A good U should make up for that and make sure that the wing responsible for the poor spot buys the first round at post game.:)

That's what Brice Durbin told me in the Fed office when I visited in 1980. It's never been written in any manual, but that's the instruction passed down.

Never comes up in Canadian football, where the ball is never spotted with any of it inside either 1 yard line.

5-3-4...A ball touching the goal-line plane, when it becomes dead is in the end zone, even though it is moving away from the nearer end line and has its foremost point in the field of play.

Actually, it is written under casebook play 5.3.4 sit A in the 2008 casebook.

So if the ball is on the 1, and there's a penalty that's half the distance, how does that work? :confused:

It's brought no closer than that. (They also have a restriction on the distance on rough play penalties, which are 25 yards and can take the ball to less than half the distance from the goal line, but only to take it no closer than to the 15.) If it's against team B IIRC there are circumstances in which it becomes an AFD. A score can be awarded for repeated or deliberate fouls by a team near its goal line.

They used to also have a provision that on a "convert" (try) the ball couldn't be snapped any closer to the goal line than the usually awarded spot. I think they changed that.

:D :p