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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.
LSU and Mississippi State still lead the SEC with a margin of +16 despite having bye weeks. This week’s colossal matchup between the Tigers and Tide in Tuscaloosa will pit two of the four best SEC teams in terms of explosive play margin.
Commenter “Tiger” said it best last week: the fact that Missouri has the 5th-best margin in the SEC at +9 really is astounding when you consider that Mizzou is the 2nd-least explosive offensive team in the league as you’ll see in the next section. That’s a testament to the Tigers’ incredible defensive effort this season.
Georgia was hoping to pull off the upset against Florida this past Saturday with the help of big plays because the Bulldogs were among the top five in the league in margin (+10), while Florida was among the bottom five (-1). Well, it didn’t happen and the Gators enjoyed a +4 margin in explosive plays against the Bulldogs.
| TEAM | EXPLOSIVE PLAY MARGIN | EXPLOSIVE PLAYS | EXPLOSIVE PLAYS ALLOWED |
|---|---|---|---|
| T1. LSU | +16 | 31 | 15 |
| T1. Mississippi State | +16 | 29 | 13 |
| 3. Ole Miss | +12 | 32 | 20 |
| 4. Alabama | +10 | 21 | 11 |
| 5. Missouri | +9 | 15 | 6 |
| 6. Georgia | +6 | 24 | 18 |
| 7. Arkansas | +5 | 28 | 23 |
| 8. Florida | +3 | 20 | 17 |
| T9. Kentucky | +2 | 25 | 23 |
| T9. Tennessee | +2 | 27 | 25 |
| 11. Texas A&M | +1 | 25 | 24 |
| 12. Auburn | 0 | 18 | 18 |
| 13. Vanderbilt | -4 | 14 | 18 |
| 14. South Carolina | -5 | 21 | 26 |
EXPLOSIVE PLAYS: OFFENSE
This will be the area in which we break down how the explosive plays are happening for each team.
With 3 explosive plays at Auburn, Ole Miss surpassed LSU for the most explosive plays this season with 32. The Rebels added two more through the air to increase their season total to 19, which is three more than any other SEC team.
Arkansas flew up the leaderboard from 9th to 4th after its offensive outburst against Tennessee-Martin. The Razorbacks had 9 explosive plays, 4 rushing and 5 passing, in the win over the Skyhawks.
Tennessee racked up 6 of them (4 rushing, 2 passing) in the 52-21 blowout of Kentucky. Florida, which has especially been lacking in 20-yard runs, had 2 against Georgia after only having 3 combined in the first seven games this season.
| TEAM | EXPLOSIVE PLAYS | RUSHES FOR 20+ | PASSES FOR 30+ |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. Ole Miss | 32 | 13 | 19 |
| 2. LSU | 31 | 23 | 8 |
| 3. Mississippi State | 29 | 13 | 16 |
| 4. Arkansas | 28 | 12 | 16 |
| 5. Tennessee | 27 | 15 | 12 |
| T6. Kentucky | 25 | 13 | 12 |
| T6. Texas A&M | 25 | 13 | 12 |
| 8. Georgia | 24 | 16 | 8 |
| T9. Alabama | 21 | 12 | 9 |
| T9. South Carolina | 21 | 12 | 9 |
| 11. Florida | 20 | 5 | 15 |
| 12. Auburn | 18 | 7 | 11 |
| 13. Missouri | 15 | 10 | 5 |
| 14. Vanderbilt | 14 | 10 | 4 |
EXPLOSIVE PLAYS: DEFENSE
Much like the offensive rankings above, we’ve taken similar effort to breakdown exactly how the SEC defenses are allowing explosive plays.
Two strengths will go head-to-head when LSU visits Alabama. The Tide have only allowed 4 rushes of 20-plus yards this season, which is tied for 2nd-fewest in the SEC. However, Leonard Fournette and the Tigers have racked up 23 of them, which is tied for the most among Power 5 teams. Only Georgia Southern (39), Houston (30) and Arkansas State (25) have more.
Meanwhile, LSU and Missouri have only allowed 3 rushes of 20-plus yards this season, a mark that’s tied for the fewest in the FBS.
South Carolina stays last among SEC teams by allowing 26 explosive plays. The Gamecocks gave up 4 last week to the Aggies. Not surprisingly, all of them came on the ground, three of them to QB Kyler Murray. South Carolina has given up 22 explosive runs, and only Texas Tech (24) has allowed more among Power 5 schools.
| TEAM | EXPLOSIVE PLAYS ALLOWED | RUSHES FOR 20+ | PASSES FOR 30+ |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. Missouri | 6 | 3 | 3 |
| 2. Alabama | 11 | 4 | 7 |
| 3. Mississippi State | 13 | 8 | 5 |
| 4. LSU | 15 | 3 | 12 |
| 5. Florida | 17 | 9 | 8 |
| T6. Auburn | 18 | 12 | 6 |
| T6. Georgia | 18 | 9 | 9 |
| T6. Vanderbilt | 18 | 12 | 6 |
| 9. Ole Miss | 20 | 7 | 13 |
| T10. Arkansas | 23 | 9 | 14 |
| T10. Kentucky | 23 | 12 | 11 |
| 12. Texas A&M | 24 | 16 | 8 |
| 13. Tennessee | 25 | 13 | 12 |
| 14. South Carolina | 26 | 22 | 4 |
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.
