I will ignore your first statement as I do not intend to get in a pi**ing contest with you.

There is a literal interpretation of the rulebook and there is the spirit of the rules. There is the literal application of rules and there is the common sense application of the rules. The spirit of the rules and the common sense approach has served me well in 53 years of officiating. I am comfortable with my approach.

In your example , has A88 returned "to the field" as required by Rule 9-6-1? I would rule he has not, hence he is guilty of illegal participation.

i-6?

I wonder if this guy Walt actually officiates or maybe he just shows up at football fields and criticizes officials who actually understand the complexities of the spirit of the rule and how a referee's personal interpretations can actually be better than the rulebook.

Wow. I really hope you are in fact a troll. I knew I should have left well enough alone. Please carry on carrying on.

Thus the proof that your interp is not what FED or NCAA wants - this player is NOT illegal, and may even catch this pass so long as he lands with 1 foot first in bounds. There are caseplays for this in both books.

Mike, since you and Welpe are apparently such scholars of the English language, perhaps you can educate those of us struggling to keep pace. I keep asking for advice that couild help me understand some logical rational helping me to grasp why the rules would provide for a player who has absolutely and totally complied with the requirements of being OOB, to be given the opportunity to reverse that condition while remaining OOB and allowing him to interact with play from beyond the confines of the playing field.

Previous tense and your gramatical expertise aside, can you tell me ANY circumstance that would make this type of interaction fit with the basic concept of the game, as relates to being OOB?

There are exceptions to people being forced OOB, which allow them to return inbounds and participate, although there doesn't seem to be any exception to their being allowed to participate while remaining OOB. Offensive players (A or K) are NOT ALLOWED to exit the field and return (unless forced) and their otherwise returning is Illegal Participation.

It seems to some of us with less insight than you, that the rules try to clearly separate being OOB from being within the Field of Play, exceptions noted, so the simply question seems, " why would such an abstract interpretation that allows a player, who has clearly fullfilled the requirements of being OOB, be given this impractical and, dare I say silly, notion of regaining the ability to participate in the game while remaining beyond the field of play.

Surely, your special insight, can detail a reasonable explanation. If not, perhaps your headlights don't shine as far and as bright as you assumed they did.

I think your question and smart comments would be better directed to the rules committee because you really don't care about an answer from the knaves, do you? But then you also must think that both the NFHS and NCAA rulesmakers are a bunch of fools.

Willie, it's time to give ALF a cat and put him to bed please.

You guys are acting like ajmc is from another planet. I still agree with him and can't believe ya'll would let that play happen. I was illustrating this play in the driveway for a buddy of mine and he couldn't believe it was legal, even the nosey neighbor of mine Mrs Ochmonic agreed. Maybe we will all just have to agree to disagree...

Yabut Willie, what did your wife, Kate, say?

Well THAT was laced with sarcasm. I'm not sure what I did to bring on such bitterness (other than my probably-harsher-than-necessary response to golf).

It seems that you are reading only parts (or perhaps remembering only parts) of what I (and others ... I'm not the only person on here that understands what "Is Touching" means - just most have given up) have written.

Nowhere do I state (in fact, 3 times I state the opposite) that this play is a TD, yet asdf continues to both insist I did and proclaim that I am an idiot because I did... But I didn't. I didn't say it... and I don't think it.

Asdf seems to want to insist this is simply a pass to someone out of bounds. By rule it's not. He also wants to insist that "out of bounds" is some sort of "status" that must be reset by becoming "in bounds". It's not. In bounds is not a defined term. Our rulebooks have flaws ... but lack of definitions is not one of them. If it's not there, it's not a term. There is simply out of bounds (with the word IS in the definition twice), and not out of bounds. Saying that an airborne player over the out of bounds area (or who had previously been out of bounds) is still out of bounds is contradictory to the rule.

Of significance is the exception you mentioned. NO WHERE does it say the player must establish himself (a basketball concept) back in bounds before leaping for the ball. It says he must "immediately attempt to return". As long as he's doing that, he's not illegally participating, and touching the ball is not illegal touching. He DOES NOT have to reach in bounds first (This is important to note... if the ridiculousness spouted by ASDF was true, he would, because his fictitious "status" would still be "out of bounds", which would then cause the play to be dead when the ball touched this "out of bounds" player. And according to caseplay (and thus ... with the "spirit of the rules" you and he want to refer to, because leaning on the actual rulebook is too hard, I guess) - the player MAY jump from out of bounds, catch the ball, and land in bounds for this to be a completed (and legal) pass.

I've explained THAT 3 times as well. I'll make it simple if this isn't clear enough:

ASDF's assertion that a player who was previously out of bounds that jumps is STILL out of bounds is in direct contradiction to the rule that allows this player (if he was forced out) to catch a ball from OOB and land back in the field of play.

Now ... can we dial back the vitriole about 4 notches and actually discuss rules and how they apply?

You claim that an airborne player who previously met the criteria for being out of bounds is neither inbounds nor out of bounds.

My ridiculous scenario of a player intentionally running beyond the end line, going airborne and batting a pass to a teammate wholy inbounds could not possibly, by your interpretation, be illegal. We know by rule that a player who intentionally runs out of bounds "shall not return".

If he is neither inbounds nor out of bounds, he certainly cannot be judged as a player who has returned, thus making his actions, (again, by your interpretation) legal....


Now..... Just for grins.........

Please review 1-2-1 and then 2-10-1 & 2........

Afterwards, take a moment to revisit 9-6-1. Notice, that the term "to the field" appears twice.

This is IP all day, every day.............

Um... well... of course it is. And Illegal touching in NCAA. AJMC wants to call this an incomplete pass. Which is what I'm arguing with. What are YOU arguing with?

(BTW - if you incorrectly believe this out of bounds player remains out of bounds when he jumps up ... why do you correctly have Illegal participation? If this is merely an out of bounds player - who is participating - it's simply a pass hitting something out of bounds (in this case, A88), and incomplete. You DO, now, have the right answer. But your right answer is 100% in conflict with all this screaming and yelling about an OOB player remaining OOB when he is no longer touching anything OOB).

This is one of the case plays. He is not out of bounds. But he is guilty of IP or IT (depending on code). Play on, but there's a flag on the play.

Which case play might this be?

Do you have a moment to respond to the other one?

AR 7-3-4-V

Eligible receiver A44 is running a pass pattern near the sideline. As
a legal forward pass comes toward him, he accidentally steps on
the sideline, leaps, muffs the pass into the air, returns to the ground
inbounds, grabs the ball and lands on his knees inbounds with the
ball firmly in his possession.

RULING: Illegal touching. Penalty— loss of down at the previous spot.