New rule???

[GC Baseball Fan]

I was watching a H.S. game last night and on the PAT, the defense was in the neutral zone and was penalized and the offense was given a choice of taking the penalty or adding it to the kickoff. Is that correct?

 

[FBRef]

No. Encroachment is a dead ball foul and causes the ball to remain dead.

 

[GC Baseball Fan]

That's what I thought. They did it twice. They also had a live ball holding and dead ball late hit that they offset. This was on TV.

 

[FBRef]

Originally posted by GC Baseball Fan:

That's what I thought. They did it twice. They also had a live ball holding and dead ball late hit that they offset. This was on TV.

Ah! That changes things. If the game was played in Texas, they play by NCAA rules, not the NFHS rules we play by.

 

[GC Baseball Fan]

Tennessee

 

[White hat]

A few years ago a rule was changed allowing a foul by the opponent on a scoring play to take enforcement on the kickoff. All deadball fouls following a score can also be applied to the kickoff, not the PAT. This was to correct the situation where a defensive player could take a cheap shot and it only cost his team 1.5 yards because the enforcement could only be from the 3 yard line.

Since encroachment is a deadball foul, the referee might have been thinking this could be pushed to the kick off.

If that's what he was thinking, it's incorrect. Once the ready for play whistle is sounded for a PAT, any deadball foul must be enforced in the now-or-never situation.