To be fair, its only not reality because they play a much weaker schedule than they are ever given credit for. In 2022, they only faced 3 ranked teams the entire regular season, and lost to 2 of them. They also lost to unranked Marshall and Stanford teams, only beat BYU by 8, Cal by 7, and Navy by 3. Just like those 2nd tier B1G teams (Wisconsin, Michigan State, etc.), they’d be an 8-4 or 7-5 team every year in the SEC, at best.
They were pretty good from 2017-2021 as you said, but the guy behind all that success is at LSU now. And Kelly is the only decent hire they have made since Lou Holtz left 30 years ago.