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Explosive plays are the reason most of us watch football.
There’s nothing more exciting than holding your breath as your favorite quarterback lets one fly 50 yards down the field, or when the conference’s most exciting running back slips through a seam and has nothing but daylight in front of him.
So this season, we’re going to be tracking explosive plays for each team … how well they’re able to produce them, and how well they are able to defend them.
For the purposes of this story, SDS defines an explosive play as a run of at least 20 yards or a pass of at least 30 yards.
EXPLOSIVE PLAY MARGIN
This is the ultimate measure of how well a team is performing in the explosive plays department. It is simply a tally of explosive plays created measured out against the amount of explosive plays allowed. If your team has made more explosive plays than they’ve given up, there’s a good chance they are doing something right.
There were five combined explosive plays in the Alabama-Mississippi State matchup this past Saturday, and the Crimson Tide had three of them. However, the Bulldogs maintain their position at the top of the conference in margin.
Ole Miss climbed into 2nd place despite being on a bye week. That’s because LSU was -3 in its 31-14 loss to Arkansas.
Kentucky (+1) climbed out of the negatives with a +2 in a losing effort to Vanderbilt. Speaking of the Commodores (-7), they’ll face the Aggies (-2) this week in a battle that pits two of the three teams in the negatives.
| TEAM | EXPLOSIVE PLAY MARGIN | EXPLOSIVE PLAYS | EXPLOSIVE PLAYS ALLOWED |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. Mississippi State | +15 | 33 | 18 |
| 2. Ole Miss | +13 | 38 | 25 |
| T3. Alabama | +12 | 27 | 15 |
| T3. LSU | +12 | 34 | 22 |
| 5. Missouri | +10 | 20 | 10 |
| 6. Georgia | +8 | 28 | 20 |
| T7. Tennessee | +7 | 33 | 26 |
| T7. Arkansas | +7 | 37 | 30 |
| T9. Auburn | +5 | 25 | 20 |
| T9. Florida | +5 | 24 | 19 |
| 11. Kentucky | +1 | 29 | 28 |
| 12. Texas A&M | -2 | 29 | 31 |
| 13. Vanderbilt | -7 | 17 | 24 |
| 14. South Carolina | -9 | 23 | 32 |
EXPLOSIVE PLAYS: OFFENSE
This will be the area in which we break down how the explosive plays are happening for each team.
Arkansas and Kentucky enjoyed the most explosive plays in Week 11 with four apiece. As a result of their explosiveness against LSU, the Razorbacks broke a tie with the Tigers to grab sole possession of 2nd with 37 explosive plays on the season, just one shy of Ole Miss for the league lead. Of the Hogs’ four explosive plays, three were on the ground and one was in the air. Coach Les Miles believed those were critical, and he made reference to those plays in his weekly press conference, pointing out that three of them went for 201 yards.
This week, LSU and Ole Miss square off to match up two of the three most explosive teams in the SEC.
A trio of explosive plays proved costly for Mississippi State in its 31-6 loss to Alabama. The Crimson Tide scored on all three of its big ‘uns: Jake Coker’s 60-yard pass to Calvin Ridley and two runs from Derrick Henry, a 74-yarder and a 65-yarder.
Vanderbilt got two passing plays of 30-plus yards in its win against Kentucky. That’s half as many as the Commodores had entering the game.
| TEAM | EXPLOSIVE PLAYS | RUSHES FOR 20+ | PASSES FOR 30+ |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. Ole Miss | 38 | 16 | 22 |
| 2. Arkansas | 37 | 18 | 19 |
| 3. LSU | 34 | 23 | 11 |
| T4. Mississippi State | 33 | 13 | 20 |
| T4. Tennessee | 33 | 19 | 14 |
| T6. Kentucky | 29 | 16 | 13 |
| T6. Texas A&M | 29 | 16 | 13 |
| 8. Georgia | 28 | 20 | 8 |
| 9. Alabama | 27 | 17 | 10 |
| 10. Auburn | 25 | 12 | 13 |
| 11. Florida | 24 | 7 | 17 |
| 12. South Carolina | 23 | 12 | 11 |
| 13. Missouri | 20 | 13 | 7 |
| 14. Vanderbilt | 17 | 11 | 6 |
EXPLOSIVE PLAYS: DEFENSE
Much like the offensive rankings above, we’ve taken similar effort to break down exactly how the SEC defenses are allowing explosive plays.
After only allowing three explosive passing plays entering Week 10, Missouri has allowed four total over the past two games (two vs. Mississippi State and two last week vs. BYU). As a result, Auburn (six) now leads the SEC in preventing 30-yard pass plays. Still, Mizzou has allowed five fewer total explosive plays than any other team in the conference. The Tigers have only allowed a mere three runs of 20-plus yards, the fewest in the entire FBS.
When it comes to preventing big runs, LSU was doing great in that department. However, the Bayou Bengals gave up three to Arkansas, which is half as many as they had surrendered entering the week’s action.
Mississippi State at Arkansas should be an intriguing matchup. The Razorbacks have the 2nd-most explosive plays in the SEC, while the Bulldogs are 3rd-best at preventing them.
| TEAM | EXPLOSIVE PLAYS | RUSHES FOR 20+ | PASSES FOR 30+ |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. Missouri | 10 | 3 | 7 |
| 2. Alabama | 15 | 4 | 11 |
| 3. Mississippi State | 18 | 11 | 7 |
| 4. Florida | 19 | 10 | 9 |
| 5. Georgia | 20 | 11 | 9 |
| 6. LSU | 22 | 9 | 13 |
| 7. Auburn | 20 | 14 | 6 |
| 8. Vanderbilt | 24 | 16 | 8 |
| 9. Ole Miss | 25 | 10 | 15 |
| 10. Kentucky | 28 | 15 | 13 |
| 11. Tennessee | 26 | 13 | 13 |
| 12. Arkansas | 30 | 12 | 18 |
| 13. Texas A&M | 31 | 21 | 10 |
| 14. South Carolina | 32 | 25 | 7 |
Born and raised in Gainesville, Talal joined SDS in 2015 after spending 2 years in Bristol as an ESPN researcher. Previously, Talal worked at The Gainesville Sun.
