Does THIS ARTICLE look familiar?

It should.

According to Clark’s research, Seminoles conference opponents have been called for five holding penalties against Florida State all season. That’s five holding penalties in 418 plays that opposing teams have run against the Seminoles’ defense.

This was in 2010 and it surely hasn't gotten any better. We've all complained thru 2 games that "the refs have been screwing us."

via i55.tinypic.com

Is it the conspiracy theorist in me that thinks there is a problem here or is there empirical evidence?

Especially considering that the defenses at Duke (one per game), Wake Forest (one per game) and Virginia (1.6 per game) are all drawing holding calls at a higher rate per game than the Seminoles (.83 per game) in conference play. Sophomore defensive end Brandon Jenkins, who leads the team with 10 sacks, said he's talked to the referee plenty of times about being grabbed by offensive tackles.

Consider this sequence of plays surrounding the ONLY holding call we received against Clemson:

Drive starts. Holding call on tackle. VERY next passing play, Jenkins gets one of only two sacks the Seminoles had on the day. Bud actually tweeted about this sequence, sarcastically commenting on the sack after the holding call as a shocker.

Why is this important?

Well, before the season I wrote this nifty little piece and the point behind it rings VERY true. You need to be able to pressure and fluster a QB for your secondary to be able to do its job. It really doesn't matter how good your secondary or back 7 is if you can't get pressure. Do we have a lack of talent along the line? Hardy. We might have the best line in the nation.

1. FLORIDA STATE
BUZZ: The Seminoles were lax at times against the run, especially in the second half of the season, but they had a fierce pass rush (48 sacks) and all but one of the top eight linemen returns. E Brandon Jenkins had 13.5 sacks and did a nice job against the run, as well. There will be a solid five-man rotation at tackle, headed by junior Jacobbi McDaniel, and the good news for coaches is that none of that quintet is a senior. Depth at end isn’t as good, but with Jenkins getting so much attention from opposing blockers, you have to figure the other ends are only going to have to beat one man to get to the opposing quarterback.

Jernigan and Cam Erving are playing meaningful minutes and not because the upperclassmen are injured... we are just THAT deep. And the ONLY reason that we don't have prolific sack and interception numbers is due to the lack of pressure were getting because our guys are getting routinely held. We couldn't get Clemson off the field due to a variety of questionable calls (other calls than holding even) but the success of a team is dictated by the fight in the trenches and our guys aren't being allowed to do their jobs as the rules of the game dictate. If you are held as often as our guys are, you'd expect to get some calls. This isn't new to this year either as the same thing was going on last year, enough so to get a comment out of our All-American.

Time to take the tin foil hats out? I've been wearing it since last year. But is it really a conspiracy with all of the evidence present? Don't expect us to have the kind of success we're capable of unless we get some holding calls or stop getting held. That our defense did as well as they did in terms of YPP against Clemson is miraculous.

By the way, we rank a tidy 32nd in the nation with 10 sacks (thru 4 games, obviously) for a 2.5 sacks per game total. That's almost a sack less per game than the 3.43 we achieved in 2010 and take into account that we've already played the two worst teams on our schedule.

Ask and thou shalt receive Law74

So far this year, we've been called for holding (while on offense) 11 times (two of which were declined). Our opponents have been called for holding a whopping THREE times. That's quite the gap if you ask me ladies and gents!