One rather major talking point from the weekend happened at the Conference USA Championship game between UCF and Tulsa.
From a coaching point of view, this is a perfect example of knowing that a member of the kicking team simply touching the ball on a kick play doesn't kill the play (it must be picked up) - the UCF players make that mistake and the Tulsa receiver nips in behind them, picks the ball up and runs it in for a touchdown.
From a refereeing standpoint however, things are a lot more complicated. On the replays, the back judge can be seen signalling for a timeout - Rule 4-1-2-a states:
A live ball becomes a dead ball as provided in the rules, or when an official sounds his whistle (even though inadvertently), or otherwise signals the ball dead.
So strictly speaking, this TD shouldn't have stood - by rule the ball is dead while it is loose.
We discussed this in our pre-game on Sunday and the question was asked - What would we do if this happened in one of our games? Keep quiet and hope no-one else saw the signal, or be honest by blowing the play dead and eating a huge portion of humble pie? Naturally, we chose the second option, and thankfully never had to put it into practice (phew!).
So what should've been the outcome of this play? First of all, we have illegal touching by a member of the kicking team, so the receiving team would have the option of taking the ball at that spot. What's more, the illegal touching is actually an illegal bat (you can't bat a loose ball forwards in the field of play), so the end result would be a ten yard penalty from the spot of the foul and a first down to Tulsa.
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