For me, this is a new one:
This field goal was kicked *twice* on the same play. It counted. It shouldn’t have.
It’s probably illegal.
Division III Texas Lutheran tried a field goal. If that school rings a bell it’s because it’s Verne Lundquist’s alma mater. Uncle Verne’s actually on the board of regents there.
The kick got blocked, but the kicker stuck with the play. As the ball bounced back to him, he kicked it again — all on the same play — and put it through the uprights. This, apparently, counted as a legal field goal.
It got booked like this:
Is re-kicking a blocked kick actually legal?
It’s probably not legal, although not explicitly illegal according to the rulebook.
The NCAA’s football rulebook says “a player shall not kick a loose ball,” and doing so is a 10-yard penalty that carries a loss of down.
Is this loose ball, then? I think it is:
A loose ball is a live ball not in player possession during:
1. A running play.
2. A scrimmage or free kick before possession is gained or regained or the ball is dead by rule.
We saw what that looks like last week when Mississippi State and Louisiana Tech bungled an 87-yard fumble. It included multiple kicks and we compared it to soccer.
That is a seriously deft first touch with his foot, folks. Ignore the fact that he’s trying to grab the ball to no avail. Picture him 1 vs. 1 with a defenseless goalkeeper in front of him. His second kick gives him serious space to create separation, and if he hadn’t stumbled I would have loved to see his clinical finish on goal.
Oh, yeah, right. We’re playing American football here still. Sorry.
The kicking team’s allowed to pick up a blocked field goal and “advance” it, which is different from double-kicking it.
From the rulebook:
A scrimmage kick that fails to cross the neutral zone continues in play. All players may catch or recover the ball behind the neutral zone and advance it.
The blocking of a scrimmage kick by an opponent of the kicking team who is not more than three yards beyond the neutral zone is considered to have occurred within or behind that zone.
That means blocked field goals are recoverable by the kicking team and can be run forward, for sure. We saw that recently in another DIII game, where an offensive lineman caught a blocked PAT and rumbled ahead for a two-point conversion:
I’m devastated that this act of special teams wizardry isn’t strictly within the bounds of the rulebook.
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