Next up in our stat breakdown series is a look at Big Play Potential. We like to keep things simple, so this statistic is designed to show just how often a team will break a play from scrimmage of 20 yards or more.
The best teams in the league record-wise are near the top of the chart, naturally. Florida lands in the top three of this category with a 3-5 conference mark, but considering the speed and size of Chris Rainey and Jeff Demps, it’s no surprise the Gators pile up big plays but lack consistency.
Vanderbilt makes the list at #4 and that’s likely going to be surprising to a few people. But Jordan Rodgers’ arm combined with James Franklin’s penchant for calling trick plays has resulted in a surprising number of big plays on the year. (Vanderbilt actually has more plays of 40+ yards on the season than any other SEC team.)
Toward the bottom of the list are the usual suspects: Ole Miss, Tennessee, Mississippi State and Kentucky. Those four offenses haven’t been able to muster much of an attack from long- or short-range and as a result they’re a combined 2-22 in SEC play.
So below are the numbers for Big Play Potential. We’ve divided each offense’s total number of plays run by its number of 20-yard plays. That shows us how many plays a team will run before breaking off one of 20 or more yards.
If you’re trying to figure out how many big plays a team usually connects on per game, the average SEC offense runs a total of 64.3 snaps per in-conference contest.
Big Play Potential (Offensive-Snaps-Per-20-Yard-Play in SEC contests only)
| School |
SEC Record |
Offensive Snaps |
20-Yard Plays |
Snaps Per 20-Yarder |
| Alabama |
6-1 |
464 |
35 |
13.25 |
| Arkansas |
5-1 |
382 |
28 |
13.64 |
| Florida |
3-5 |
470 |
32 |
14.68 |
| Vanderbilt |
2-5 |
439 |
29 |
15.13 |
| LSU |
6-0 |
381 |
22 |
17.31 |
| Georgia |
6-1 |
515 |
29 |
17.75 |
| Auburn |
4-3 |
458 |
24 |
19.08 |
| S. Carolina |
6-2 |
551 |
28 |
19.67 |
| Ole Miss |
0-6 |
390 |
18 |
21.66 |
| Tennessee |
0-6 |
367 |
13 |
28.23 |
| Miss. State |
1-5 |
402 |
13 |
30.92 |
| Kentucky |
1-5 |
394 |
10 |
39.40 |
[...] create more big plays. (In the perfect timing category, we broke down each SEC school’s Big Play Potential yesterday… and the Wildcats landed dead last in our rankings.)6. The Kentucky [...]