Punt behind NZ
 

This happened to us the other night - K's ball 4th and 10 at their 40. Punt is straight up, hit the ground beyond the NZ, bounced back behind the NZ, comes to rest @37. K comes up, touches the ball, R comes in, picks it up and scores. We never blew it dead. Was that right?

nz abbreviation?

Neutral zone.

Peace

In all current major USAn and Canadian codes, yes. In NCAA, because the ball touched ground on R's side of the neutral zone, R would have a theoretic choice of the touchdown or 1st down at the spot of touching by K.

Have you taken any kind of officiating class? NZ is pretty basic.

Under NFHS rules, there is no first touching on this play as the ball was touched by K BEHIND the NZ.

K could actually have picked the ball up and advanced it.

Yes. A scrimmage kick recovered behind the neutral zone can be advanced by either team. 6-2-2, 6-2-3

Canadian Ruling
 

CANADIAN RULING:

The ball is live to all R players, and the K punter and those behind the K punter. Other K players must be outside of a 5-yard halo.

Also, a ball would never come to rest in Canada.

He could also have kicked it again.

The question I have is how long do we wait after the ball comes to rest before we kill it?

Until we judge that no player is attempting to secure possession. 4-2-2(e)(2)

Yeah, I agree with that - it wasn't like we stood there looking at and then finally K touched it -it was like it stopped rolling and immediately k touched it, then R scooped it up.

We had a similar one last wekend as well. Punt was partially blocked, rebounded in the air about 5 yards beyond the NZ where K caught it. Our very alert HL blew it dead as soon as he caught it then had a look of momentary terror wondering if he should have blown it dead. As R , I wandered over to my HL to be sure what we had.

2 questions came to mind that we answered quickly and I believe correctly:

1. Did the partially blocked kick by R allow K to advance the kick. answer is "no" becasue touching of low scrimmage kick by R in or behind the nuetrual zone is ignored. So K still cannot advance since he caught it beyond the NZ.

2. did this play have the possiblitlity for kick catching interference if any R was in postion to catch this partially blocked kick? We said "yes" and decided quickly that there were no Rs in the area.

So, we had a partially blocked punt and "a lot of nothin" quickly afterward.

comments or quibles?;)

I doub he knew he could run with it or that he could have kicked it again.

I believe you did it correctly. Partial block behind the nz, the touching is ignored. No kick catching interference when it was downed. Play is over, not penalty. Turn the ball over to R on the spot of K's first-touch and the ball game moves on.