ATHENS — Kirby Smart wants Nate Frazier to be more involved in the offense.

For as great as Trevor Etienne has been this season for Georgia, the Bulldogs aren’t eager to put a ton of miles on the junior running back.

To this point, Frazier is second on the team in carries. Even if his playing time has been sporadic at best.

“Just stay patient. Stay patient,” Etienne said of his advice to Frazier. “You know, you came here for a reason. Just trust the process. Don’t get bored with the process. It’s going to be a long journey. Just keep going, no matter what.”

After leading Georgia in rushing attempts and yards against Clemson, Frazier didn’t play in the first half against Kentucky. He didn’t play at all against Alabama. He then didn’t log his first carry against Auburn until the second half.

On the season, Frazier has 27 carries for 151 yards and a touchdown. But Frazier can’t only impact the Georgia offense by what he does with the ball in his hands.

Whether it be pass blocking or working as a receiver, Frazier needs to become a complete running back.

That is what Smart wants to see out of the freshman running back.

“The first thing I found with freshmen is, do they have the courage? Okay, he has the courage,” Smart said. “Some of them don’t have the courage. Does he have the strength? He’s got the strength. He can lift the weights, and then you’ve got 225-pound linebacker. You’ve got to be physical. The guy’s coming full speed at you and you’re standing still. He checks that box. And then is he smart enough? Can he pick it up and know mentally what to get with the pace of it? He gets a lot of looks from us.”

It’s not a surprise to see Smart push Frazier to be better as a pass blocker. Right now, Cash Jones is Georgia’s best third-down running back at the moment, which is to be expected given his time accrued at Georgia.

There have been ups and downs for Frazier in his brief Georgia career, which is understandable given he was still in high school six months ago.

“We’ve got a quarterback that we feel like is really important to protect. And Nate takes a lot of pride in his performance, and he wants to do it right,” Smart said. “So we give him a lot of opportunities to get better at that in practice. And he’s taking a lot of ownership.”

Georgia doesn’t need Frazier to be the top option on the offense. It has enough talented playmakers to do that.

There’s an obvious area where Frazier has to improve if he’s to carve out a bigger role for the Bulldogs. If Frazier begins taking more reps on third down, it will be because Georgia can fully trust him to pick up a blitzing linebacker and protect the football.

And for all the fluctuations with Frazier’s playing time, Georgia knows what the freshman’s baseline is. Even at this stage, he’s still an asset for the Georgia offense.

“Nate’s just a super twitchy guy. Like, you never really know where he’s going to hit it,” sophomore tight end Lawson Luckie said of Frazier. “Nate kind of sees the field a little different. He’s just explosive. He’s just going to hit it where he thinks it is, so you’ve got to block. You’ve always got to cover your man up with Nate because he’s never going down. He’s always going to make one extra cut, and he can take it whenever he can.”