Quote:
Originally Posted by suds79
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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I have refereed High School football for years. Your friend is correct with the snap to the holder, who can rise from his knee for a fake. however, it looks that after the ball was kicked and blocked the holder retrieved the ball while his knee was still on the ground, which in this case would have established him as down. I will say it is EXTREMELY close on whether he was rising or not, and I was watching in in slow motion, so I would never hold a play that close a gainst a referee without the benefit of slow motion made available to him. I give major kudos to the referees in this game holding their whistle's, which would have nullified the play and made them retry, it is hard to swallow your whistle and let the play kill itself, especially in a game winning play like this one.