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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.
Due to Mississippi State’s -2 margin against Ole Miss, and Alabama’s massive +5 performance against Auburn, the Crimson Tide have moved into a tie for 1st in explosive play margin with Mississippi State. The Bulldogs had held the lead in this category for much of the season.
Georgia moved into the top 5 with a +3 effort against Georgia Tech.
We still have just two teams in the negatives: South Carolina (-5) and Vanderbilt (-11). The Commodores’ margin remains unchanged from last week, but the Gamecocks actually enjoyed a +3 margin against the top-ranked team in the country last week.
| TEAM | EXPLOSIVE PLAY MARGIN | EXPLOSIVE PLAYS | EXPLOSIVE PLAYS ALLOWED |
|---|---|---|---|
| T1. Alabama | +15 | 33 | 18 |
| T1. Mississippi State | +15 | 39 | 25 |
| T3. LSU | +14 | 41 | 27 |
| T3. Ole Miss | +14 | 46 | 32 |
| 5. Georgia | +12 | 36 | 24 |
| 6. Tennessee | +10 | 41 | 31 |
| T7. Arkansas | +6 | 41 | 35 |
| T7. Auburn | +6 | 32 | 26 |
| T7. Florida | +6 | 30 | 24 |
| T7. Missouri | +6 | 22 | 16 |
| 11. Texas A&M | +2 | 35 | 33 |
| 12. Kentucky | +1 | 40 | 39 |
| 13. South Carolina | -5 | 33 | 38 |
| 14. Vanderbilt | -11 | 21 | 32 |
EXPLOSIVE PLAYS: OFFENSE
This will be the area in which we break down how the explosive plays are happening for each team.
The red-hot Rebels were only up by two explosive plays on Arkansas and LSU entering last week, but Ole Miss is now up by five on the rest of the conference. The Rebels actually got four of their five explosive plays on the ground in the 38-27 Egg Bowl win over the Bulldogs. Still, Ole Miss finishes the regular season with the most passes of 30-plus yards (25), one more than its in-state rival.
While Arkansas and LSU were already in 2nd entering last week, Tennessee joined them to close the regular season with four explosive plays, three on the ground, in their 53-28 win over Vanderbilt.
Not surprisingly, Missouri and Vanderbilt finish 13th and 14th, respectively, in the SEC. Both teams share those same rankings in explosive passes. The gap between them and 12th (Florida) is quite large as the Gators have eight more explosive plays than Missouri.
| TEAM | EXPLOSIVE PLAYS | RUSHES FOR 20+ | PASSES FOR 30+ |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. Ole Miss | 46 | 21 | 25 |
| T2. Arkansas | 41 | 20 | 21 |
| T2. LSU | 41 | 28 | 13 |
| T2. Tennessee | 41 | 26 | 15 |
| 5. Kentucky | 40 | 24 | 16 |
| 6. Mississippi State | 39 | 15 | 24 |
| 7. Georgia | 36 | 26 | 10 |
| 8. Texas A&M | 35 | 16 | 19 |
| T9. Alabama | 33 | 20 | 13 |
| T9. South Carolina | 33 | 16 | 17 |
| 11. Auburn | 32 | 17 | 15 |
| 12. Florida | 30 | 12 | 18 |
| 13. Missouri | 22 | 13 | 9 |
| 14. Vanderbilt | 21 | 13 | 8 |
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.
Missouri finishes the regular season slate as the conference leader in preventing explosive plays, with only 16 given up the entire season. Missouri is tied with Nevada and Penn State for the fewest 30-yard passes surrendered (7), and Alabama is tied with Akron and Navy for the fewest 20-yard runs allowed (5).
Florida allowed five explosive plays in the 27-2 loss to Florida State, four on the ground and one through the air, to fall into a tie with Georgia for 3rd-best in the SEC. The four 20-yard runs allowed to the Seminoles was almost half as many as UF had allowed previously (10).
Kentucky fell below South Carolina for last place in the very last week of the season after allowing a whopping seven explosive plays to rival Louisville, bringing the Wildcats’ season total to 39. However, South Carolina still comfortably leads the SEC in 20-yard runs allowed (29), while the same can be said about Arkansas (23). The Gamecocks’ 29 explosive runs allowed are the 3rd-most among Power 5 teams. Only Purdue (30) and Texas Tech (33) allowed more.
| TEAM | EXPLOSIVE PLAYS | RUSHES FOR 20+ | PASSES FOR 30+ |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. Missouri | 16 | 9 | 7 |
| 2. Alabama | 18 | 5 | 13 |
| T3. Florida | 24 | 14 | 10 |
| T3. Georgia | 24 | 15 | 9 |
| 5. Mississippi State | 25 | 15 | 10 |
| 6. Auburn | 26 | 16 | 10 |
| 7. LSU | 27 | 10 | 17 |
| 8. Tennessee | 31 | 15 | 16 |
| T9. Ole Miss | 32 | 15 | 17 |
| T9. Vanderbilt | 32 | 19 | 13 |
| 11. Texas A&M | 33 | 23 | 10 |
| 12. Arkansas | 35 | 12 | 23 |
| 13. South Carolina | 38 | 29 | 9 |
| 14. Kentucky | 39 | 22 | 17 |
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.
