Having OL downfield is always a risk with the POP pass concept, but its worth it. It happens all the time in college football now, but officials rarely call it. We just happened to get caught once last week.
If I understand the rule correctly, you can be downfield so long as you are engaging a defender who lined up at the line of scrimmage. The only time we got called was when Whitehair was downfield and not blocking anyone (we were in splits). The other times, including on Gronks TD, our lineman were downfield but still engaged in a block of a defender who lined up at line of scrimmage.
As I understand the rule, Stoops was whining even though the refs called in exactly right in each instance.
Someone with better knowledge: Is this the rule?
By rule, ineligible players (offensive line, covered receivers) have 3 yards to work with past the LOS on a pass play. They can go down field and engage in blocks inside this area, and this rule is largely in play for play action passes so the OL can fire off to sell a run fake. Technically they can not come off the LOS, engage a defender, and continue to block the defender (even if he started at the LOS) down the field outside of those 3 yards. And they certainly can't release downfield (like we got called for) to block if the ball is thrown downfield The exception of course is if the ball is caught behind the LOS, then the OL can be down field and block as soon as the ball is caught with no infraction.
The issue is as more teams run POP pass concepts, you end up with more offensive linemen releasing early because of the timing of these plays. Its easier because most teams use zone blocking concepts and generally even on run plays the offensive line blocks at the LOS, however you will still get occurrences when the offensive line release, probably more so for us because we still employ a lot of man blocking concepts with our zone schemes in the running game.