College (NAIA) scenario

[DLH17]

Originally Posted by Texas Aggie

The foul is an illegal bat, which is a basic spot foul (in this case, enforced from the spot OF THE FOUL -- the end zone) and would result in a loss of down and safety if enforced. Team B should have been given an option to decline the penalty and take the ball where they recovered it. R would only signal a safety if Team B accepted the penalty.

What is the Fed rule here? Not that its relevant to this play, but I'm wondering if the crew worked Fed Friday night and forgot the NCAA rule on Saturday.

Thanks for the response.

As far as the fed rule, I did a quick case play search with key word "punt" and found that "force" is the operative word. If R blocks K punt, and the ball rolls towards K's end zone, then muffed (barely touched by) K, the referee must determine if the original force to the ball (the block) would have been sufficient to move the ball into the end zone. If so, then it is a touchback. If the touching was a new force, then a recovery by K would be a safety or recovery by R would be a TD.