Even by the standards of the point spread, Kirby Smart's Georgia Bulldogs have been blowing opponents out of late.
Since outlasting Clemson, 7-3, in an opening-weekend rock fight, the Dawgs have been favored by 22.5 (vs. UAB), 31.5 (vs. South Carolina), 36 (at Vanderbilt) and 16.5 (vs. Arkansas), according to the Caesars closing line. They've won by 49, 27, 62 and 37, respectively. They've allowed 23 points in five games, and neither of the two touchdowns opponents have scored -- a fourth-quarter pick-six and a fourth-quarter touchdown pass against the backups -- have come against the first-string defense.
That Georgia has played two top-10 (at the time) teams in five games -- and has dealt with QB injury issues, starting backup Stetson Bennett twice already -- and is still outscoring teams by more than 36 points per game is jarring. The Dawgs' performance against the spread makes it even more stunning.
They are beating the spread by an average of 15.6 points per game thus far, second in the country and behind only Bowling Green (+16.0). No offense to Scot Loeffler's Falcons, but overachieving against the lowest possible bar -- BGSU came into the year having lost 15 of its last 17 games to FBS competition and was a 2.5-point underdog to FCS' Murray State in Week 3 -- is not quite the same type of achievement, even if they have played genuinely encouraging ball in 2021.
Indeed, Georgia is only the 12th team since 1979 to have overachieved by more than 15 points per game against an average spread of at least -20. Four of the other 11 teams to have pulled this off won the national title -- 36% of them, which almost perfectly matches Georgia's current national title odds of 39%, per the Allstate Playoff Predictor -- and three more came achingly close. Only one finished the year with more than two losses.