LOD penalty on 4th Down
 

Would someone please clarify a LOD penalty on A during 4th down? I believe you mark off appropriate yardage regardless of the nature of the penalty plus it would be 1/10 for B. This happened in a playoff game last night and the crew (not mine) was quite confused. In the end, the penalty for illegal touching (not ineligible down field Mr. P.A. guy) was properly enforced. Thanks for your input.

Secondly, if you have OPI on a two point conversion, do you still enforce on the kickoff?

Probably best if you describe for us the actual play on the first one... But generally, yes. Think of loss of down not as "add one to the down marker" and more as "loss of the right to replay the down". Enforce the penalty, B's ball.

On the 2nd, no. If the offense commits a foul on a successful 2-pt conversion, you replay the conversion.

Under FED rules, a LOD penalty on a try negates a replay.

I should clarify...on OP I didn't do a good job explaining second play...LOD on 2 pt. conversion attempt that fails...iow, incomplete pass during a play on which A committed OPI....don't replay down, but do you still assess yardage for penalty?

First play, A65 caught thrown ball behind line of scrimmage and ran down field where he was tackled. I would guess the debate was first where the ball was caught because I think behind LOS is touching and beyond is OPI, if I remember what I read in the book.

*7.5.13 SITUATION A:

Ineligible receiver A2 is behind, in or beyond his neutral zone when a forward pass by A1:

(a) accidentally strikes him in the back; or
(b) is muffed by him; or
(c) is caught by him.

RULING: In (a), there is no foul for illegal touching. In (b) and (c), it is illegal touching and if beyond the line of scrimmage, would also be offensive pass interference. The acts in both (b) and (c) are intentional and not accidental as in (a).

COMMENT: Game officials should be very clear in explaining penalty options if the same act constitutes more than one foul as listed above, as each of the fouls has a different penalty.

It's actually both illegal touching and OPI if beyond the LOS.

Possibly Illegal man downfield too.

Indeed, good point.

I'm guessing that's why there was so much confusion; they had a little of everything on that play.

Illegal touching is not OPI. That was an old case play the Fed slipped back in. They rescinded it via a memo on the website.

No. Think about it. OPI is previous spot enforcement. If you penalized it on the kickoff, it would be suceeding spot enforcement.

It hasn't been OPI for a few years now.

Link: NFHS | 2012 NFHS Football Rules Interpretations

Hmmmm interesting.

Our crew had this three weeks ago and I talked them out of OPI (I had no doubts).

So when I saw this thread I pulled up the book on Arbiter and saw this ruling and was a little surprised and sent an e-mail to my crew saying I owed them a root beer. Sending a new e-mail this morning... glad I don't owe. :) Thanks for pointing me in the right direction.

We seem to be averaging about one post per week where an official didn't get the word about the resurrected, erroneous case play. NFHS, or more than likely state supervisors, did a poor job of spreading the word. I don't know too many guys that go to the NF site since they killed the old officiating forum there.

It's like the newspaper posting a correction on p. 31. :(