Blocked Punt question

[UJoking]

A play happened at the very beginning of the Hylton vs Ocean Lakes game that I would love to hear the ruling on. OL lines up for the punt and the punt is blocked, it carries in the air across the LOS and is touched by both teams as they scramble for the ball. I assume OL recovered the ball as they gave possession of the ball to OL. The video announcers were incredulous as they were saying the ball did not go far enough for OL to get a first down and should be Hylton ball.

Was this the proper call or were the announcers correct?

 

[White hat]

You say both teams touched it, but what matters is who touched it first when it was beyond the line of scrimmage. (touching behind the line is ignored).

It is a Fundamental of football -- more basic than a rule, it's actually written into the Fundamentals, Fun. II-3, to be exact -- that "If R (receiving team) is the first to touch a scrimmage kick beyond the neutral zone (line of scrimmage) then a new series will be awarded to the team in possession at the end of the down..."

If Hylton touched it first beyond the line, OL gets to keep it.

On a different note, I've learned that while many announcers are fine, many more have very limited knowledge of the rules. This does not stop them from speaking as if they have some authority on the subject, but they're very often uninformed. The analyst on the BIG 10 championship game made a complete idiot of himself a couple of times last weekend. You'd think to get to that level of assignment you'd know something, but he was yammering a couple of times for or against calls that were so basic it proved he had no idea what he was talking about.