Ah a friend of mine who is a HS coach pointed this out.
The holder is exempt from the knee down rule. Otherwise, he'd be down as soon as he catches it with his knee already on the ground.
For that rule to apply to him, he'd have to take his knee off the ground and then put it back down again.
Clearly he just took his knee off the ground and then started running a few seconds later.
So it seems like this one is truly if the ref blew his whistle or not.
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