While I was told to let UCF go, I still think we can take a look at what happened there:
Nebraska 2018 119th 7.9 PPG
UCF 2017 127th 8.4 PPG
UCF 2016 105th 7.2 PPG
Interestingly, penalties actually got worse year 2 in their undefeated year. Kind of crazy to look at. I think with the fast-paced offense we run, holding, false starts, illegal formations are going to happen 3 or 4 times a game.
What's interesting, is Central Florida in 2016 actually ran 76.2 plays per game, for 38th in the country. The year after when they went undefeated, they actually slowed down a bit and had 72.4 plays per game for 58th in the country.
Now, that's just stats in a vacuum. Could they have scored quicker? Defense was possibly worse and on the field longer? Lots of factors lead to less plays. But I thought with them getting "worse" in the penalties per game category that we would see an uptick in how fast they went since people were more familiar with the offense. That proved wrong on my end. I wonder what will happen with Nebraska 2019, Nebraska was 36th in the country last year with 75.3 plays per game. Will we dial it down a bit? Will we score easier to take it down? Or will we legitimately go faster and get closer to 80 plays per game?
Long story short, I think penalties are a part of how we play. This isn't line up in iFormation and not commit a holding penalty ever like the 90s. When players get tired, their fundamentals go to poop. I think that's what happens a bit to us.