After 40+ years of varsity I'm back to just JV but often get calls/texts from
former HC's we worked for. This HC last week had the classic punt which
K has surrounded and the ball not quite at rest and right as R reaches into
the circle of wagons to run off with it the LJ blows it dead. I told him 4-2-2-e-2
speaks to this and 4-2-2-f talks about K just touching a scrimmage kick at rest
also kills it. My recollection of old case book plays and/or clinics always used
the phrase "at rest or nearly at rest"...meaning ball could still be moving some
and we had the power to blow it dead. Has time passed me by on that interp?
Maybe they threw that way to handle it out?
Apparently the 2021 language of NFHS: 4-2-2-f has changed, from your recollection, regarding scrimmage kicks (" and when the kickers are first ( .i.e. before any touching by the receivers) to touch a scrimmage kick
after it has come to rest beyond the neutral zone and between the goal lines. However there is no indication whether the judgment, that the ball has come to rest, continues to rest exclusively with the covering field official.
