KCI or Illegal Blocking or Nothing
 

R signals for a fair catch. K is stopped 5 yards away from R. Just before the ball gets there R realizes its going to be short of him and leaps from his feet initiating contact with stationary K who did not have time to react, and then muffs the ball and K recovers? I understand R must be given a chance to catch be ball but since K was stationary and R made such an adrubt move that didn't allow K to get out of his way would this still be a penalty on K?

KCI, unless K was blocked into R by another R player.

Take a look at 6-5-6b.

K must give R the chance to catch the ball. Period. There are no exceptions for a stationary K.

Yep - can't punish R because K didn't choose wisely.

Something similar to this happened in the Arkansas-Alabama game, I think the second quarter. There was a small crowd and a little blocking, but the ball hit an Alabama (K) player in the brainbucket as the Arkansas (R) receiver was moving at the last moment to try to catch it. K recovered, flag was thrown, KCI, 15 yards called from the spot.

What I wondered is, if this starts to become recognized, do the others on this forum think that special teams coaches may start to coach their players to play a few yards back from the ball on short punts in the hopes that it will hit a K player who would be playing the receiver?
If this starts to be a trend, do you think that it would be seen as gamesmanship by R with rules interpretations generated to help fix this problem?
Could R even feign recieving a punt when he is certain it is about to land short to further lure K into the ball? Could this eventually be considered USC?

I realize the can of worms I'm trying to pry open, but the kicking game of this sport has always been a lucid nightmare for rules. Frankly I love the mental exercise, so long as it doesn't bite me in the butt!

Honestly, I've wondered why no one ever tries to have this happen on purpose. I guess the risk of fumble is too great to tell your guy to line himself up 3 yards from where it's coming down, and then suddenly run up to catch it.

But it seems to me you'd draw a lot of penalties if you did that occasionally ... and once it was known that you did that, you'd also get a LOT of extra space, which could benefit your runbacks.

I sure hope not in the general case. Stationing yourself a few yards behind where the ball's going to land has long been a tactic of the more daring receivers, who like to meet the ball with a running start. But if they wanted to change the rules as they apply to a player who has himself signaled for a fair catch, I wouldn't object -- possibly even to apply to a teammate of a player who has so signaled.