Kirby Smart has conquered everything there is to accomplish in college football except one thing, the 38.5 point spread. Entering week one against Tennessee State, the Georgia head coach's baffling 0-15-1 record against the spread when favored by 38.5 points or more will be put to the test.
Georgia currently is a 50.5 point favorite over Tennessee State in their week one contest. While a victory is all but guaranteed, history warns that covering this massive spread might be Smart's toughest challenge yet.
Last year Georgia had three chances to cover this large of a spread. They were favored by 38.5 against Marshall, 48.5 against Austin Peay and 53.5 against Charlotte, but they fell short in all three of these games as they beat Marshall by 38, Austin Peay by 22 and Charlotte by 32. Smart however will have a chance to break this curse during the Bulldogs first game of the season in a little over a month.
Why Georgia struggles covering massive spreads
The biggest reason why Georgia has failed to cover these large spreads is because Smart doesn't really care about blowing teams out. Sure he wants to beat Tennessee State by a wide margin, but to him there is no difference between winning a game by 30 and winning a game by 50.
Instead Smart is focused on preparing his team for the rest of the season, and leaving his starters in all game to run the score up doesn't do that. He will let his starters dominate for a majority of the game, but at some point he will pull them out and let his backups get a lot of playing time.
Playing Georgia's backups will lead to less points being scored, but this is still the right thing for him to do. These backups will be relied upon at some point during the season when Georgia is playing a real opponent. They also will be the starters at some point in their careers as well. So these backups will need to be ready for these moments, and the best way to prepare them is by giving them as much game experience as possible.
Smart also wants to avoid as many injuries to his starters as possible too. So instead of risking injury in a game that's already won he will pull his starters to keep them healthy.
Kirby Smart could cover Georgia's 50.5 point spread if he wanted to
If Smart wanted to cover this spread he could. All he would have to do is let his starters play all game and have them try and score as fast as possible like they're running a two-minute drill.
In this scenario Georgia could easily score upwards of 70 points in this game while giving up close to zero on defense. But that at the end of the day that doesn't matter.
Smart wants to win championships, and blowing Tennessee State out doesn't help them win a title. In fact, you could argue that leaving Georgia's starters in just to blow Tennessee State out decreases their chance to win a championship because of the increased risk of injury.
Maybe Georgia will still cover this spread by playing their backups for much of the second half. If that happens Smart won't complain, but history shows that this almost certainly will not happen.
Add us as a preferred source on Google