The Reasons For More Penalties

[FaninAma]

I understand that the inexperience factor is a big
reason but I am a bit suprised by the number of
crippling offensive hold penalties we 've had called
this year.

Is it all because of inexperience on the OL?
We had far fewer holds called on the OL in the 2
home games but I was also wondering which con-
ference officials officiated those games?

I do know that the Big 12 officials reffed the
BYU Miami games and the laundry was flying
all over the place. Coincidence or is the Big 12
calling holds a lot closer this year? And if they
are calling it a lot closer why this year?

Remember that TT got called for bunch of holds
in their game against Texas so it just isn't OU
getting flagged.

[goingoneight]

After Sam got hurt and Landry's taken a few shots of his own, I'd bet they're just trying to protect better and when they're getting beat they're breaking rules. Sorta like when a corner gets beat on a streak route and takes down a receiver before the catch.

It's experience and growing pains. Remember when the worst thing we could say about OUr O-line was that they only got us to the MNC but just didn't win it so they musta been "too big" or Loadholt was "lazy?" Minnesota seems to like Big Phil AND Jon Cooper.

[NormanPride]

BYU the OL had no idea what was going on. Miami, the young OL crapped itself and screwed up a lot. It will get better.

[IronHorseSooner]

Man, you bring home another good point. Big Phil and Coop are both with the Vikes, Duke is with the Panthers, and Walker would have had a shot to at least make a practice squad, if he would have had his head on straight. T-Will will be in the NFL next year. We had NFL caliber linemen last year. The guys who beat them, like Orakpo, are in the league now doing the same thing to those guys. We have this:

LT: Converted RT
LG: Converted DT
C: RS-Frosh
RG: True Frosh
RT: First year soph transfer

To me, that looks like a make-shift OL. Now the good thing is, these guys can only get better. OL is one part of the team, like a QB or a LB, where it takes a couple of years to really learn the scheme. The good thing is, like I have posted before, that, throw in Good, and there are some guys to build around here. I looked at what we have on the team for OL the next couple of years, and out of our 14 linemen that we expect to have in camp next year, only Brandon and Jeffries will be seniors next year. That means that we have a number of guys to build a line around for a few years. The reason that we had such success last year, 2000, 2003, and 2004 had to do with experienced, cohesive lines. Good, Habern, and Evans will be a solid interior line for a few years. Give J. Jones a chance. He didn't play a lot at LSU, and he sat out last year. It will take him this year to get his rhythm back. It's always that way with transfers, be they from another university or JUCO. The key will be to develop a guy to be a LT. We have some projects here, Vinson and Alandoye, who could simply be out there to slow down rushers. Stephenson is athletic, but probably needs to add about 20 lbs. An encouraging sign is that I read about the 2010 frosh OL keeping in contact and becoming close friends. They have the right guys here, but they simply need to gel.

[cheezyq]

It's harder to get called for holding when you're being the aggressor on offense. But because we sit back in a shotgun spread formation too frequently and don't do the wide splits like Tech or Mizzery, then our tackles get beat to the outside and HAVE to hold to keep our QB from getting killed. It's just more apparent against teams that have decent blitz packages or DL talent/speed.