Four games into the season, one can certainly argue the Bulldogs have yet to play a complete offensive game.

Last Saturday, the fact the Bulldogs were held scoreless in the second half obviously played a huge role in their 41-24 loss to Alabama.

“I don’t know that that’s exactly true in all games, because we had a couple games where we started moving the ball really well,” head coach Kirby Smart said during Tuesday’s Zoom session with reporters. “In the third quarter, I'd agree, we have to do a better job of being able to come out of the half, whether it’s the first drive or the second drive.”

It’s certainly been a mixed bag.

Against Arkansas, the fact Georgia scraped together just five first-half points led to Stetson Bennett taking over the starting job at quarterback, ultimately leading the Bulldogs to 32 second-half points and an easy 37-10 win.

The next week against Auburn, the opposite was true. Georgia rolled out to a 24-3 halftime lead, but scored just three points in the third quarter of a 27-6 victory. Against Tennessee, the numbers were fairly equal across the board as Georgia scored 17 points in the first half and 24 in the second, but still it wasn’t the kind of consistent effort the Bulldogs need to beat teams the caliber of the Crimson Tide.

“That Auburn drive (to start the third quarter), defensively, we didn’t come out very good at all. They converted a bunch of third downs. I feel like they held the ball forever on that one drive converting it,” Smart said. “It’s not necessarily one thing you can put your finger on. It’s something we have to execute better.”

Smart confirmed Monday’s report by UGASports.com that running back Kenny McIntosh banged up his knee in the first half at Alabama—but that he’s expected to be fine.

“Kenny banged up his knee early in the game. I don't know if it was on the opening kick or if it was one of the first carries. I’m not sure exactly when it happened,” Smart said. “We don’t think he’s going to be out long. But he’s hurting a little bit. He’s probably going to be in a black jersey at least today. We'll see how he goes day to day. But we don’t think it’s anything long-term.”

Cornerback DJ Daniel, meanwhile, has a minor ankle injury.

“DJ has been battling an ankle. It’s been bothering him and he’s practiced, he’s done everything we’ve asked, he’s rehabbed,” Smart said. “He's trying to get better, and we’re hopeful he gets to 100 percent this week and can get back to the level he was playing at last year.”

Smart was also asked about a supposed injury to defensive lineman Devonte Wyatt that appeared to catch the head coach off-guard.

“Devonte Wyatt is fine. He played the whole game,” Smart said. “He’s banged up, but he’s fine and good to go.”

Smart also revealed that wide receiver Matt Landers is dealing with a minor shoulder injury that occurred in the win over Tennessee.

“I thought it was a pass interference, but the play he got banged up on, he came back in and helped us in the game on special teams. But he was limited during the week of practice,” he said. “We'll work hard this week to go physical like we always do in off weeks and try to get better.”

Georgia officially started its third project of the “Dawgs For Pups” initiative in the form of a coat drive for area children.

After the idea arose from a recent team meeting, the Bulldogs will be participating in a number of “Dawgs For Pups” activities in the Athens area and beyond to help students and others affected by the recent COVID-19 pandemic.

The team will be working with the local Boys & Girls Club to generate donations of new or gently used coats for children in kindergarten through eighth grade.

Donations for the coat drive can be dropped on the main floor (third floor) of the UGAAA’s Butts-Mehre Building (1 Selig Circle, Athens, GA 30602) between 8 a.m. – 5 p.m. Monday-Frida. The first activity helped raise approximately $100,000 to help provide students in Athens-Clarke County with WiFi hotspots. The second project was called Food2Kids Snack Drive, and it generated more than 27,000 pounds of food donations for area children. Donations can still be dropped at the Food Bank of Northeast Georgia. The food bank’s warehouse address is below, and the hours for drop-off are 8 a.m. – 3 p.m. Monday through Friday.

Smart on the play of his offensive line: “I think our offensive line has probably played pass-pro pretty well this season, in terms of protecting the quarterback and not losing one-on-one battles. I don’t feel like we’ve had a lot of mismatches where we’ve said, 'That guy is really going to struggle against that guy.' Maybe some of that has to do with who we’ve played and what the defenses are like. I don’t know that defensively, teams are as good as they were last year, across the board. We’ve been able to run the ball at times. At Arkansas, we really struggled to run it, and that was probably the game when we struggled to run it the most in terms of down in, down out. We have to develop more depth at the offensive line and we have to get the guys within the offensive line to play with even more conditioning and stamina, so that when we do go tempo, we can out-compete the other team in terms of conditioning level.”

Smart what not having non-conference games has meant to the development of his younger players: “It makes the off-week that much more important, I think.... We had to travel, dress fewer. When you play SEC games, the rules are different than non-conference. We knew that coming in. I hate it for the development of the rest of your roster. When you talk across the league, that’s the most frustrating thing for coaches is, you’ve got kids that want to play, that’s what they want to do. ....You’ve got to sell their growth in practice and when they go against ones on scout team—just not going to be a lot of opportunities to play a lot of guys.”

Smart on plans for practice this week: “It’s an off week this week. We're a beat-up football team. We’ve got some guys who’ve got to get well, but we’ve also got a lot of guys that have got to get better. So we're taking this week, working Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday trying to get fundamentally better, trying to focus on us, not really on opponents—things we can get better at. That starts today. I'm excited to see the kids go out and work. We’ve got a lot of guys who probably haven’t gotten to play the number of snaps we'd like in terms of the teams we played and the tight games we've had to play, and we’ve got to get those guys better. It starts today, and they'll get to work on it today.”