first touching
 

very interesting situation. we have a tied ball game with 6 seconds to go in the game. the score is tied 14-14 and team A in kicking off. the kick is squibed and first touched by A within the 10 yards, team B picks up the ball and runs all the way to the 10 yard line and the time expires. the clock started when B picked up the ball. is there any way that B could take the ball at the spot of first touching and have an untimed down or do we go to overtime? since there is no penalty for first touching and the clock expired i would think that regulation is over. although first touching has some elements of a penalty.

Game over.

KDF is right: the game is over (or headed for OT).

First touching is a "violation" but not a foul. So yes, it shares some dimensions of fouls, including a kind of penalty. But the relevant part of the untimed down rule (3-3-3a) makes it clear that we play an untimed down only when the penalty for a foul is accepted.

Since first touching is not a foul, 3-3-3a does not apply.

Canadian Ruling
 

CANADIAN RULING:

If B declines the Illegal Touching (first touching before the ball went 10 yards), go to overtime.

If B accepts the IT, back 5 and re-kick.

The clock should start when A touched the ball, even though it was an illegal touch.

If I am seeing this correctly, the kicking team should not have been able to advance it anyway. It should have been blown dead when they recovered a muffed kick. Am I missing something here?

You are missing something, bkdow ... it was B (or R) who recovered and advanced the kick. A (or K) had merely touched it prior to going 10 yards. ;)

ah, yes, thank you!! Sorry about that!

That's what I was thinking. There's really not enough information here, but assuming K was the one guilty of first touching, they had to have touched it before it went 10 yds, and that's fine - no penalty. But to pick it up and run with it means they gained possession, and at that point should have been ruled a dead ball. If that's what happened, then it should have been R's ball at the spot of first touching, right?

Never mind - i'm all confused with the A&B thing instead of K&R.

Related question
 

K kicks onside but puts such a spin on the ball that it travels backward. The ball is rolling along on K's 35 yard line and R attempts to pick it up. Luckily, he recovered it. But if he didn't could K have recovered and gained possession?

It seems like they could have but I was unsure because the recovery was behind the free kick line.

Any thoughts?

6-1-5: "Any K player may recover the ball before it goes beyond R’s free-kick line if it is touched first by any receiver."