“Explosive plays are the three-point shot of college football” is what one statistician once said in a blog I read somewhere, probably. That statement isn’t wrong and certainly highlights the need for an offense to find ways to take chunk yardage out of drives.
Since 2010, only roughly 1 of every 10 drives with no explosives has ended in a score, while that rate triples when an offense has even a single explosive play. Once an offense has two explosives they have better than 50% chance to score, and it only increases from there. This is extremely strong evidence that explosives are incredibly valuable.