Why blocked kick isn't a free pass to rough kicker

By foxsports
Updated Mar. 4, 2020 12:26 p.m. ET

What started as a football game in Huntington, West Virginia, between Western Kentucky and Marshall on FOX Sports 1 Friday turned into a video game right before our eyes.

It was a very good video game, mind you, with both quarterbacks -- Western Kentucky's Brandon Doughty and Marshall's Rakeem Cato -- throwing for more than 400 yards each and a combined 15 touchdown passes. 

What a kick it was to watch. Final score: Western Kentucky 67-66 in overtime after the Hilltoppers went for two and converted the play for the win.

Speaking of kicks, I want to talk about a play that happened in the third quarter that had several people in my crew sending me questions. 

Here was the situation: Western Kentucky had the ball, fourth-and-5 from the Marshall 18-yard line with 5:19 left in the third quarter. Western Kentucky led 49-42. WKU kicker Garrett Schwettman was attempting a 35-yard field that was blocked by Marshall's Jarquez Samuel. However, a roughing the kicker penalty was called on D.J. Hunter and Western Kentucky was given the ball back, first-and-goal at the Marshall 9-yard line. 

What? How can that be? How can you having roughing the kicker when the kick was blocked, people on Twitter asked?

When is it roughing or running into the kicker and when is it not? 

I read this rule, it seems, every year. And it's the same in the NFL as it is in college. Everybody always refers to the fact that if the kick is blocked, then you can't have roughing or running into the kicker. That's true, for the most part, because it's normally the person who blocks the kick is usually the one who runs into the kicker. 

However... 

By Rule No. 7 in the NCAA rule book: "When a player other than the one who blocks a scrimmage kick runs into or roughs the kicker or holder, it is a foul.''

The officiating crew in this game handled it beautifully. Samuel blocked the kick, but Hunter hit Schwettman's plant leg, thus the foul.

Seems only fitting that a video from the video game-like contest between Western Kentucky and Marshall will be used in college training tapes for a long, long time to come, because it's a play that is so rarely seen.