Endzone fumble

[Tom Cook]

This is an interesting pay that happened to me last fall. I was the umpire-3-man crew. Trailing by 1 in last 2 min. of game A has 3rd and goal from 4. A1 fumbles on the 2 the ball goes into the end zone and hits B1 on the knee and rebounds across the goal line, hits A2 and goes back into the endzone where it hits B2 and rebounds towards the goalline once again. B3 recovered the ball, with the ball astride the goal line. You make the call.

[Smoke]

I would say it is a touch back seeming part of the ball is still in the endzone and B teams never had control of the football??

[Tom Cook]

That's what we did Smoke. The ball was still partially in the end zone, and A put it there so B got a touchback. But I'm not 100% sure that we shouldn't have moved the ball out of the end zone and given B the ball just out of the end zone.

[Larry Gonski]

You guys are right. Fed. rule 8-5-3c.....A It is a touchback when...A fumble is the force, or a muff or batt of a backward pass or a fumble after either has touched the ground is the new force, which sends the ball to or across the opponent's goal line and provided such opponent is in team possession or the ball is out of bounds when it becomes dead on or behind its goal line.