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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 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 have given up, there’s a good chance they are doing something right.
Mississippi State surged to the top of this list, thanks to its beatdown of Northwestern State. Hail State was tied for 7th in margin entering Week 3, but it’s at the top now after going +7 against the Demons.
Another team making a big move up was LSU, which went from +1 (10th in the SEC) to +7 (tied for 5th). Auburn plummeted from an even 0 to -6, falling into a tie with South Carolina for last in the SEC.
| TEAM | MARGIN | EXPLOSIVE PLAYS | EXPLOSIVE PLAYS ALLOWED |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. Mississippi State | +10 | 15 | 5 |
| 2. Georgia | +9 | 12 | 3 |
| T3. Alabama | +8 | 12 | 4 |
| T3. Ole Miss | +8 | 16 | 8 |
| T5. LSU | +7 | 9 | 2 |
| T5. Missouri | +7 | 8 | 1 |
| 7. Kentucky | +4 | 13 | 9 |
| 8. Texas A&M | +2 | 12 | 10 |
| T9. Arkansas | +1 | 10 | 9 |
| T9. Florida | +1 | 8 | 7 |
| 11. Vanderbilt | 0 | 6 | 6 |
| 12. Tennessee | -3 | 6 | 9 |
| 13. Auburn | -6 | 4 | 10 |
| 14. South Carolina | -6 | 5 | 11 |
EXPLOSIVE PLAYS: OFFENSE
This will be the area in which we break down how the explosive plays are happening for each team.
Ole Miss maintained its lead in offensive explosive plays, adding three more in its win over Alabama. LSU was dead last in the SEC with just two big plays, but the Tigers are now 8th after posting seven explosives against Auburn, all in the run game. However, they’re still the only school not to record one through the air.
Auburn got one on the ground in their loss to LSU (Jeremy Johnson’s 65-yard TD run), but that wasn’t enough to keep them it from falling into last place. Georgia leads the SEC with 10 rushes of 20-plus yards, while LSU is second with nine. The state of Georgia occupies three of the top four spots in this category: Georgia Tech (13), Georgia Southern (12) and Georgia (10).
| TEAM | EXPLOSIVE PLAYS | RUSHES FOR 20+ | PASSES FOR 30+ |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. Ole Miss | 16 | 7 | 9 |
| 2. Mississippi State | 15 | 7 | 8 |
| 3. Kentucky | 13 | 8 | 5 |
| T4. Alabama | 12 | 7 | 5 |
| T4. Georgia | 12 | 10 | 2 |
| T4. Texas A&M | 12 | 8 | 4 |
| 7. Arkansas | 10 | 5 | 5 |
| 8. LSU | 9 | 9 | 0 |
| T9. Florida | 8 | 2 | 6 |
| T9. Missouri | 8 | 5 | 3 |
| T11. Tennessee | 6 | 3 | 3 |
| T11. Vanderbilt | 6 | 2 | 4 |
| 13. South Carolina | 5 | 3 | 2 |
| 14. Auburn | 4 | 2 | 2 |
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.
Missouri allowed its first explosive play of the season in last week’s 9-6 win over Connecticut, but it still ranks first in the league. Gary Pinkel’s team still hasn’t allowed an explosive pass play, one of only three FBS teams that can still say that (Boston College and Oregon State are the others).
Auburn, which was tied for 4th, took a huge tumble and is now tied for 12th. South Carolina is still in the basement. Auburn and South Carolina have allowed nine rushes of 20-plus yards, which is last in the SEC and tied for the third-worst mark in the FBS. Only Idaho (11) and Eastern Michigan (12) have allowed more. This week, South Carolina faces one of only two FBS teams to not yet record a 20-yard rush: Central Florida.
| TEAM | EXPLOSIVE PLAYS ALLOWED | RUSHES FOR 20+ | PASSES FOR 20+ |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. Missouri | 1 | 1 | 0 |
| 2. LSU | 2 | 1 | 1 |
| 3. Georgia | 3 | 2 | 1 |
| 4. Alabama | 4 | 1 | 3 |
| 5. Mississippi State | 5 | 3 | 2 |
| 6. Vanderbilt | 6 | 5 | 1 |
| 7. Florida | 7 | 3 | 4 |
| 8. Ole Miss | 8 | 4 | 4 |
| T9. Arkansas | 9 | 5 | 4 |
| T9. Kentucky | 9 | 5 | 4 |
| T9. Tennessee | 9 | 4 | 5 |
| T12. Auburn | 10 | 9 | 1 |
| T12. Texas A&M | 10 | 7 | 3 |
| 14. South Carolina | 11 | 9 | 2 |
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.
