Texas' Penalties in 2025 (deep dive)

[Realist Horn]

After hearing everyone talk about how Texas needed to cut down on its penalties next year, I took a deeper dive. I looked at all penalties, even those that were offset or declined. I know am missing one penalty from the Kentucky Overtime as I could not get a play-by-play for those drives (not sure if it was offensive or defensive)

In total, Texas had 119 penalties called on them in 2025 - 7 of those were declined and 4 were offset for a total of 108 enforced. for over 900 yards.

Of all penalties called (including declined/offsetting) they are broken down as follows:

 OFFENSE - 64 or 54%

DEFENSE - 40 or 34%

SPECIAL TEAMS - 14 or 12%

Of those penalties - these were the most common:

False Start - 26

Holding (offensive) - 25

Personal Fouls/Roughing/Unnecessary Roughness/Unsportsmanlike Conduct - 12

Offsides - 10 (C. Simmons accounted for 5 of them)

Defensive Face Mask - 7 

Pass Interference/Delay of Game - 5

Defensive Holding - 5

(illegal block, special teams holding, illegal blocks, illegal shifts/formations, ineligible man down field) all had less than 5 more than 1. 

Intentional grounding - 1. 

False Starts, Offsides and Delay of Game penalties are all pre-snap penalties - and accounted for more than a 1/3 of Texas penalties. Your personal fouls, lates hits and unsportsmanlike conduct penalties are usually post-play fouls and accounted for 10%. By just being more disciplined pre-snap and post play, Texas can easily cut its penalties next season as they accounted for 40% of Texas' penalties. . 

[Here for the Wins]

Baker, hold on the first offensive play in OT.  Least think it was play 1.

[Realist Horn]

4 minutes ago, Here for the Wins said:

Baker, hold on the first offensive play in OT.  Least think it was play 1.

We can adjust those penalties accordingly - the offense would have an even bigger share of the blame probably pushing 55%.

[Realist Horn]

Also, I didn't want to throw specific players under the bus, but I have the penalties associated with each individual player as well...

[Hookem72]

Show Roberson please, and how many of those were on special teams where we also did something good.  Thank you for doing the Lord’s work.  

[Bunk Moreland]

Great stuff, thanks! This has been a problem Sark’s entire tenure. He’s gotta get it addressed.

[CJ Vogel]

Good stuff right here. Well done.

[Beldar]

Any way you could go back over last 25 years and see where we rank in total penalties each year?

May be wrong but it feels to me we always lose the penalty battle. Have watched replays of many games and see calls on us that were iffy and flagrant fouls on other team not called. Some of them cost us games. 

Edited 1 hour ago by Beldar

[Here for the Wins]

Realist, since we’re at it, we want 25 years worth of data as you’ve presented for all teams so we can compare.😃

[AZ Longhorn]

GOATed. Thank you!!

[diegozanna20]

Really great work and really interesting!

It'd be nice to see how the penalties are "spread out", I think:
Did we become more disciplined as the year went on?
Did we get more penalties in games where the team struggled/big games, indicating the players were probably "pressing" too much?
Were the penalties drawn by younger players or is there not a trend with experience?

Because so many penalties drawn were due to mental errors I think we'll see a pretty drastic change with a more experienced team next year... or at least I hope so...
The players also need to be more loose and have fun on the field... we're gonna have really high expectations again next year... hopefully the team is prepared for it this time.
Arch needs to do what VY did and instill confidence in his teammates through his personality and his energy.

[Realist Horn]

At Ohio State, Texas only had 6 penalties: 3 false starts (23 on Baker) and a hold on offense

At Florida, it was a mess. 10 penalties, 8 on the offense. 5 false starts and 3 holds (one was decline). 

Oklahoma was fairly clean - 3 offensive penalties - 2 holds and a false start

At Georgia: 5 offensive penalties - 2 false starts and 3 holds. (2 special team penalties)

The Bowl Game at Mich was odd as well: 8 offensive, 5 defensive and 2 special teams (one from each group was declined or offset) - these penalties ran the gambit: facemask, holdings, delay of game, block in back, ineligible man down field, false starts, unnecessary roughness