Punt blocked, can I punt again?
 

Punter gets the kick blocked behind the neutral zone and the ball comes right back to him, can he punt it again? Can you refer me to a rule one way or the other? Thanks!

Is refumpire aware there are multiple rulesets out there? And that one can usually look up the easy ones like this one?

Sorry if you consider this being difficult... but with that moniker, I'm assuming you work football. If you can't already answer this before stepping on the field the very first time ... you shouldn't be stepping on the field and shame on your association.

No offense.

Legal. The rules list prohibited actions not permitted actions, so since this isn't prohibited, you won't find a rule permitting it.

I can point you to the rule that states K may catch, recover, and advance a scrimmage kick recovered behind the neutral zone (6-2-3), and if they may advance it then clearly they may also pass or kick it.

Why don't you give him the rules sets that you are aware of and go from there? Usually someone asking these questions is not familiar with the fact there is a difference if they are not an official. And if an official is asking this question they are likely asking HS/NF rules. It is really not that hard, just give a summary and let him/her tell you if they want further information. And you must not deal with a lot of newer officials as all of them are not dealing with an association and all of them are not rules expects if they have never worked a game. But oh well, Lord forgive those that do not have your experience right? ;)

Peace

Canadian Ruling
 

CANADIAN RULING:

Legal, because kicking the ball is simply another method of trying to advance the ball.

I am more than willing to help a newbie along when something slightly unexpected happens, or a play has a twist to it... or they have looked it up and found applicable rules but have a question about how to apply them.

Something like this one? I'm worried if someone is on the field and can't already answer this one... someone ELSE is not doing their job. Further, as an experienced official yourself, you know that you learn more by looking up answers than just having them given to you. Asking an easy one like this completely smacks of laziness.

I teach a football class and a basketball class to brand new officials for an organization that I am apart of in conjunction with several area local official's associations in Northern Illinois. The questions these newer officials ask often appear to us to be the silliest questions around but are something they have yet to experience so they ask them for clarification. This might be one of them to you and me, but if he is knew and does not know this it is not only common, but nothing to be surprised by. Football rules are very complicated and often people learn rules by what they see on TV which has nothing to do with the level they will be officiating. We cannot assume this is even an official at this point. I am sure they will come back and explain but they are probably overwhelmed by all the material and start thinking of things they will never see realistically (and they do not know this). I have never seen a kicking team try to kick the ball again, but that worries some people as someone probably said "Can we do this?" Or in some cases I am sure this happen at the youth level and someone suggested they got it wrong. We all were rookies at one time and I know it took me years to learn certain rules very well because many of them did not happen on a regular basis. Then when you screw up the rule, you learn it for life until they change some aspect of the rule and you have to relearn it all over again.

Peace

Wow..welcome to the forum I guess...I am not a registered official or umpire..just watch a lot of sports and thought at some point I would like to get into officiating. Sorry for posting. I guess everyone on this site must need to know everything before posting. Consider this my last post.

Fell free to post anytime. Just understand that this is not normally for fans, it is an officiating site. You get a few people that are territorial with their rules and mechanics, do not mind them.

That being said I figured you might not be an official.

Peace

My apologies then ... but surely you can understand the assumption that you are an official, given that you chose the name REFUMPIRE. Yes?

You know, I run football meetings for 2 associations and we have quite a few new officials. If someone asked me this question, I wouldn't berate them. Why would people choose to come to our association meetings if we berated people?

Why do people do this online instead of politely ask them "Which rule do you think this would be covered in?"

Exactly, this is actually a common question. It usually comes from a youth game or someone claims it happen to them and they did not know what to do.

Peace

mbcrowder, i guess you can use the old saying "never assume because it makes an"---- you know the rest. When I started working football our association met once a week and I'm sure I asked all kinds of stupid question that an old vet would roll his eyes at. If anyone there replied to a question the way you did, I would tell them to pound sand & never come back. All he was asking was a simple question, if you don't like it or it's beneath you to give an answer than don't! Just hit your back arrow and go to a different page.

You're reading into my post an arrogance that was not there.

Perhaps my error was to assume he was an official ... but I did (given the name REFUMPIRE, and given that this is a website for officials, I don't think that is THAT bad of an assumption).

I guess I just tire of the laziness I see here. If an official needed the answer to that question, there's this great book he can go to to find out the answer. People learning one little tidbit by having people answer such questions - and learn a lot more by finding the answer themselves. (And I think you all know that). Maybe I was brusquer than I needed to be - but that was where my thought process was when posting.

You all are acting as if I'm the first person ever who saw a ridiculously simple question like this one and told the poster to look it up. Rich even alludes to it in his response - that if asked this question at a meeting he'd steer the person toward the book. Obviously ... he'd do it nicer than I did... but the idea is the same even if the manner isn't.

Interesting, you read into other's posts things you know nothing about. I guess this does not work when people take your words and take from it what they like. ;)

OK, but this is a discussion board, people tend to ask questions that seem elementary to many of us that is what happen here. This is not a proving ground for everyone's knowledge. And I agree people should try to find out things, but often it is they do not know where to look. I will in about an hour go to a meeting where rules will be discussed and still we will talk after the meeting about situations and circumstances and even disagree until someone pulls out the rulebook. And then we still might not agree because the rules are not always clear in every situation and we need to get a ruling or interpretation from our higher-ups to tell us what should be done. Not everyone is a rules maven.

No you are not the only one. And I can admit I have probably done this over the 10 years of time I have been here as well, but I have learned teaching younger officials that they do not know everything or that fans do not know much of anything either. And if he came here accusing the officials of screwing up then that is one thing, but it was just a question.

Peace