Forward pass (?)

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I've never seen it before but I was pretty impressed.

I worked a game on Friday where the QB caught his own pass. He cocked the hammer on a three step drop, but when he pulled the trigger the ball just shot straight up in the air. He looked up, saw the ball, caught it and took it forward about 3-4 yards. I was doing some thinking about this because it's interesting from an academic point of view.

There is no numbering requirement for the QB so he could have had an inelgible number on. That would have been an interesting call. Fortunately he was #12.

What if he would have tried to throw it again? Does a vertical pass count as forward or backward? The QB's shoulders were pointing forward so I think I would have ruled it as a forward pass were there any issue.

Thoughts on this? It's really bizarre to me.

This was a NFHS game.