Illegal Batting During a Try

[dcs07]

Had an odd one in our game Friday (Texas High Schools) that I haven't seen before, would like your thoughts.

PAT kick is blocked backwards and is bouncing around the 20 moving toward the Team B endzone. Team B player bats the ball forward. Flag is thrown by the R as the scramble ensues. B eventually recovers around the 40 and then is chased down around the other 40 ending the play. Foul is announced as illegal batting on B, the penalty is declined, and the try is no good.

Here is a video of a similar play I found https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3KpkG_J-0OM from several years ago in an NCAA game. Everything looked about the same as this from the scoreboard controller I was sitting at, except for it being a try and not a field goal.

[Kalle]

I think the penalty is not declined by rule in this instance. Team possession has not yet changed so the penalty should be enforced as per a regular down. Illegal batting by the team not in possession is enforced from the basic spot and the basic spot here is the previous spot. So, assuming the try was from B-3, we enforce half the distance to B-1.5, repeat the try.

You can think of it this way: assume that the illegal batting happened at B-4 with a team A player about to recover with a clear field to advance the ball into the end zone for two points. Should team B benefit from the foul?

[ElvisLives]

Here is a video of a similar play I found https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3KpkG_J-0OM from several years ago in an NCAA game. Everything looked about the same as this from the scoreboard controller I was sitting at, except for it being a try and not a field goal.

I would have hoped the video clip from the Boise State-Nevada game had long ago disappeared. The R - me - totally brain farted and catastrophically mis-enforced the penalty. I won't go into more detail, but I would really hope that 'example' gets wiped off the internet forever, as it serves no useful purpose, and, without some sort of corrective explanation, can only serve to confuse folks trying to learn correct rules.
As Kalle states, since this foul occurred before any change of team possession, the correct enforcement is 3 & 1 from the Basic Spot, which is the previous spot, and the penalty is 10 yards/half the distance from the Basic Spot, and repeat the down.