Not sure what your motivation is for making this difficult. I'm not going to get into what it should be - because frankly it's fine the way it is and this happens so rarely.

I don't know what "either option is a penalty" means.

The PENALTY is "kick out of bounds". All 3 (or 2) options are enforcement options. Two of those 3 are not distance penalties. This is truly simple.

OK, let's be technical. The FOUL is "free kick out of bounds". The PENALTY is one of the three choices, although a case could be made that taking the kick at the inbounds spot is really the receiving team declining the penalty. It's not listed that way, so let's say it's 3 choices.

Edited to add: I've always been taught (and this is backed up in the Redding guides and in NFHS case 6.1.8H) that if you can't enforce the distance penalty (25 yards in NFHS football), the option cannot be given. Period.

OK, I stand corrected - and get Robert's post now. My apologies Robert. Still don't see why this is a big deal.

It's a big deal any time you need a case book, or the grape vine, to clarify something the rules state. It would be very easy for them to write this into the rules. In the meantime there's nothing in the rules themselves to justify that way of settling it (i.e. choice is off the table) rather than the touchback option I worked out above.

Meanwhile I found an obscure little provision that applies to the original question: NCAA 10-2-5(f): "Distance penalties for fouls by either team may not extend a team’s free kick restraining line behind its five-yard line. Penalties that would otherwise place the free kick restraining line behind a team’s five-yard line are enforced from the next succeeding spot." Funny word there, "extend"; maybe should be "result in" or "place" or "put" or the like. "Extend" there doesn't conform with other use of "extended" in their rules in the context of lines, planes, and zones. Actually the entire 1st sentence is made nearly (or arguably entirely) superfluous by the 2nd.

But doesn't it make sense that every penalty can be declined? (Not accounting for strategic reasons to never decline some fouls.)

If the answer to my question is yes, the I submit that declining the foul for a KO OOB gives the receiving team it's worst option: which is where the ball went OB if behind the KO line + 25y.

Actually I think the casebook is the most important book and tell us actually how to apply rules. I do more reading of the casebook than any other book in most of the sports I work for that very reason.

Peace

I see that as a bug, not a feature.

Well you do not officiate, so I would not expect you to see it my way. Put yourself in our shoes and you will realize that most of what we do is apply rules in a practical way.

Peace

Well, Bobby --- if the rulebook was filled up with the caseplays, examples, and commentary we get from other guides, it would be exceedingly long. The rulebook states the rules as concisely as possible while trying to be clear. Given that they are not perfect, and many words have multiple meanings, the casebooks are extremely helpful in showing us the intent of the rules. The casebooks are not a liability - they help us rule as consistently as possible. Without them, insane internet wordsmiths (I can think of three) would continually pick apart the rulebook looking for obscure situations and using odd interpretations of different words' definitions.

Unfortunately, even though the casebook exists and tells us in just about any case how to rule - those insane internet wordsmiths still exist, resulting in threads like this one (and more than half of the active threads going right now).

As one of my white hats says in pre-game- "You gotta gun, use it"
Actually I have found the ignore poster feature to be a useful tool.

A tool sadly not appropriate for moderators... :)

I don't know about exceedingly; NCAA put their interpretations in the book many years ago (appended at the end) and so did NFL (interpolated).

Wait are we (well really not we) now trying to argue the value of a case book? Really?! :confused:

But that's the problem. The more valuable a casebook is, the more it points to problems with the rule book.

There's nothing wrong with mnemonics, restatements of rules, or examples being given when working thru the rules requires multiple steps that can cause one to stumble; you see that sort of thng in any math textbook, for instance. What's wrong is when different readers (or even a single reader with a mind to it) can start with a single rule book and follow every possible step thru it and wind up with different answers. If a case book in that case is acknowledged to be correct, the next edition of the rule book should be rewritten to conform to that fact. If anybody who's concerned with the game comes up with a different answer from anybody else, and the only way to say who's correct (because they both give their reasons) is whatever has come thru the grapevine as "the way it's done", then the rules have failed in that particular.

And the NCAA uses video and many other forms of items to give their interpretations. They do not need a big casebook, but the NCAA does have a casebook in multiple sports just like the NF. So it is really not a very good comparison when the NCAA puts out actual videos every year and weekly information to dictate how things should be handled. The NF does not have that kind of resources to do such a thing or rely that every official would see their interpretations like the NCAA can.

Peace