Scenario 1: A88 went voluntarily out of bounds and returned before touching the ball. Illegal touching, loss of down at the previous spot. 3/10@B-15, snap, 25.
Scenario 2: I'll ignore the action by the team B player as it is immaterial to the interesting part. Contact by the team B player allows A88 to return, which he does before touching the ball. Touchdown. Try, G@3 (or 1.5 in some cases), 25.
Really interesting plays.
Kalle, in scenario 2, you say you'll ignore the action by the Team B player, but then you fully acknowledge the action of the Team B player by the fact that such contact makes A88's having been out of bounds a result of contact from an opponent, and not voluntary.
I guess you meant that you would ignore any potential defensive holding or pass interference that the contact may have been, and that is certainly a legitimate consideration. I should have stated that the contact was before the pass was released, and was otherwise legal contact.
But, you certainly picked up on the essential issue, and that was the touching of the pylon by A88's foot, and did that make him an ineligible player? As you noted, in 1, yes - ineligible, since he was OB voluntarily. In 2, eligible, since he was OB by contact from an opponent.
Now, let's talk about the play clock. In 1, yes, 25, since this would be following completion of a penalty. But, in 2, this is a try, and, unless I have missed something, the try is a 40-second play clock, that starts when the ball is dead on the touchdown (and there is nothing else to make it a 25). Now, I know that NCAA folks hold up the snap until the RO 'clears' the touchdown, but it is still a 40-second clock that starts on the dead-ball. If it gets under 25 before the RO can clear the TD, then the R will pump it up to 25.
However, that raises an interesting mechanics issue. In a perfect world, the covering official (S or F, in a crew of 7 or 8, B - and maybe H/L - in a crew of 5) would have dropped his hat to acknowledge that A88 had gone OB. In Scenario 1, the covering official would then also drop his foul marker when A88 touched the ball (before Team B, which is something else I should have stated in the setup), for the ITP foul.
But, in Scenario 2, there is no foul or other reason to interrupt the game. When we first got the 40-second play clock - before O2O - we were instructed to let the R know if a receiver was forced OB, and then caught the ball, so the R could make a quick announcement about that, even while the 40-second play clock was running. But, with teams like Oklahoma, back then, that wanted to snap the ball as quickly as we could get it spotted, we really didn't have time to do that, and not interrupt the play clock, or the legal flow of the game. (I barely had time to retrieve my hat!) So, we just kinda didn't do that. With O2O, that can now be done very expediently, and should be.
