You hear it from every head coach and offensive coordinator across the spectrum of college football.
Explosion plays.
How important they are and how they can positively affect the tenor of any game when it comes to winning or losing.
They’re an offensive coordinator’s dream while they can be a defensive coordinator’s nightmare.
In his Monday evening media briefing, Oregon head football coach Dan Lanning says those middle-sized plays that occurred against Eastern Washington need to be even bigger against No. 14 BYU on Saturday.
“I think we’re closer today than we were last week, but still not completely where we want to be,” said Lanning.
“There’s certainly a lot of positives that come out of the last game. We had a ton of first downs and were able to move the ball really well, on offense. I’d love to see some more of those plays that were 15 yards turned into 30-yard plays and create some more explosives.
“I think a lot of that has to do with how we play without the ball down the field with our finishing blocks and being able to instead of buying a ticket being a spectator on a play going and finishing blocks in place.”
It might be easier said than done against a team like BYU, however.
The Cougars are coming off a double-overtime victory over Baylor, a team that has plenty of explosion-play capability and was ranked in the Top 10 in the country.
But BYU was able to hold the Bears to just 289 total yards in the 26-20 upset victory.
“It’s a really good defense and they do a really good job” explained Lanning when asked about the Cougar’s ability to play defense.
“I think they present some really unique looks. They’re not a cookie-cutter defense. They do a lot of different stuff. I think that showed up (against Baylor).
“It was kind of a defensive battle in a lot of ways until it got to the end of the game there. And even then it was still coming down to a field goal tit for tat. There are certainly some similarities and some of the stuff that Baylor and we do on defense, but it won’t be the exact same by any means. They did a good job though of controlling some of the passing game and stopping the run.”
MEDIA BRIEFING; DAN LANNING DISCUSSES BYU MATCH-UP