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You make the call '16 No. 8

White hat

VaPreps Honorable Mention
Aug 17, 2001
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1. Team A is kicking off. The ball comes down at the B 10 yard line but takes a funny bounce sideways. B22, expecting the ball to bounce into the endzone panics when the ball is suddenly loose in the field of play with Team A running toward it. B22 gets to the ball but instead of recovering it, he intentionally kicks it backward through his own endzone.

2. Same play but instead of a kickoff from A's 40 yard line, it's a punt snapped from A's 40 yard line and the down and distance was 4th and 4. Will this make a difference in the ruling?
 
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1. 5 yard penalty, re- kick.
2. No first down for A. Penalty against B from the spot of the foul. B possession.
 
DP was quick and decisive in his answers so he probably is right ...
but I'll say they are both safeties against B. There was that much talked about play by the Seahawks (i think) where a ball was batted intentionally out of the endzone and should have been a penalty (though not called that day). So I'm thinking B is getting double whammied...safety and penalty against them on the ensuing free kick.
 
I know there is a line in the rb they says along the lines that "any scrimmage or free kick which enters R end zone is a touchback." So immediate thought was touchback for R.

HOWEVER, I'm thinking R should be punished for intentionally knocking ball out of bounds... Maybe some sort of delay of game or something penalty?
 
You guys did pretty well with this one. I remember being given this many years ago and I insisted it had to be a safety to kick a ball through your own endzone. I was ready to go to the mat for that. How could it not be a safety in both cases?

Turns out, it's not a safety in either case. B foul by illegally kicking the ball in the field of play, but the original kick never ended becasue the only way a kick can end is when it is possessed or goes into the endzone or out of bounds.

As has been said, ALL kicks into B's endzone are touchbacks.

To clarify, it's the kick by A -- the place kicker or the punter -- that is the kick that went into B's endzone resulting in a touchback. Even though the B player kicked the ball, he did not possess it, so the original kick never ended and the result of the play is a touchback, regardless of whether it's a kickoff or a punt.

Of course, there is a small matter of an illegal kick by the B player.

An illegal kick is a 15 yard penalty. If the play is a free kick (kickoff), the options for A are to decline the penalty and it's B's ball at the 20 because of the touchback, or take 15 yards from the previous spot and rekick: So there will be a rekick from the B45 yard line.

If the play was a punt from the 40, it's a post scrimmage kick foul by B. That means the basic spot for PSK that ends in a touchback is the 20. Because the spot of the foul was behind the basic spot (the 10), the penaty will be half the distance to the goal line from the 10, so B will have the ball at their own 5.
 
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