Football Kickoff

Question
A kicks off to B.  The ball is fielded by B1 who returns the ball 15 yards. During the return and before the whistle, A1 commits a personal foul face mask penalty against B1 which is followed by B1 fumbling the ball.  The fumble is recovered by A2.  The officials marked off a 15 yard penalty against A from the spot of the foul and gave B possession of the ball.  Was this correct since both the penalty and the fumble/recovery happened during a live ball situation.  This was a high school game.

Answer
Ray,

I believe the refs blew this call (if your facts are all accurate). Under rule 9.12 grabbing a face mask (especially if its the runner) is a deadball foul- and the 15 yard is assessed, then the refs did not make the accurate call. A "dead ball" foul infraction is just that- a deadball ball. The play was stopped at the infraction, the ball would have been dead there- and the 15 yards assessed against the defense, and should have been first down for the offense.

It would be interesting to hear the explanation as to why they did not believe it to be a turn over on a dead ball foul that occurred to the player who had the ball.