Muffed Punt

[tankmjg24]

Hi guys, baseball official here with a football rules question.

I was watching a high school game last night and team A punted to team B. The punt was not a very good one and kind of nose dived into the turf and took a high bounce. The returner for team B attempted to go up and receive the bounce but it was just a bit too high and tipped off the top of his fingers. The ball was recovered by team A and ran in for a touchdown. This is where the discussion begins. I apologize for not knowing which official is which, but the official on the line of the home team (line judge?) stopped where the ball was touched while the official on the line of the visiting team (head linesman?) ran to the endzone and signaled touchdown. There was a lot of noise so I am unsure if there was ever a whistle, but almost immediately the officials came together and brought the ball back to where it was touched. The coach for team A had a 5 minute conversation (literally it was about 5 minutes, not an exaggeration) with the white hat (who was doing all the talking) and a few of the other officials. From reading the paper today, it seems as if they ruled you cannot advance a muffed punt. The coaches comments were that since the ball bounced, he felt as if the ball could be recovered and ran in for the touchdown, and he was also a bit confused on why the one ref signaled touchdown. So to the experts, what do you think of this.