Football Rules- Why don't teams decline this kind of penalty?

[JayLear]

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OK football folks, this bothers me but maybe I missing something. Common scenario, it arose in last nights Holiday bowl in the 4th quarter with like 10 minutes left when Oklahoma had the ball on the Oregon 32 facing 4th and 9 up 10 points I think and took a delay of game penalty to give their punter more room to kick.

Why didn't Oregon decline the penalty?

One obvious answer is they couldn't decline the penalty, but Rule 10, section 1, article 1, subsection (b) of the NCAA football rules states "any panalty may be declined." I assume this rule is the same in the nfl.

So is this an etiquitte thing (which sounds like a silly rational to me, the game is about winning), or are a lot of coaches making an error here, or am I missing something?

Thanks, J.R.

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I didn't read through all the responses, so forgive me if somebody already answered this. The play never happened, so the defense has no option to decline the penalty. Much like an illegal procedure or false start penalty. Those are called before the play starts, and automatically enforced.