NEW ORLEANS — Kirby Smart has watched the on-field concern he has about his Georgia football team being ready to start fast play out in the three other quarterfinal games in the College Football Playoffs.

“There is a level of concern when you haven’t tackled and gone live,” said Smart, whose Bulldogs will be 26 days removed from their last football game when they take the field against Notre Dame in the Sugar Bowl at 4 p.m. on Thursday.

Indeed, Smart watched as the No. 1-ranked Oregon team coached by former UGA defensive coordinator Dan Lanning surrendered an eye-popping 34 first-half points in the Ducks’ 41-21 loss to Ohio State in the Rose Bowl CFP quarterfinal on Wednesday.

Boise State and Arizona State — the two other CFP teams with first-round byes also succumbed to slow starts in their losses.

The Broncos and Sun Devils — like Oregon — gave up two first-quarter touchdowns in their losses and were unable to come from behind and advance.

Arizona State trailed Texas 17-3 at halftime of the Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl before falling 39-31 in two overtimes, while Boise State found themselves behind 17-7 at halftime of its 31-14 loss to the Nittany Lions in the Fiesta Bowl.

It’s even more concerning for Georgia when one considers the Bulldogs have had issues with slow starts throughout the season, trailing at halftime of six of their games, and being outscored a cumulative total of 63-55 in the first quarters of their first 13 games this season.

Georgia scored only 6 points in the first half of its opening game of the season before warming up for a 34-3 win over Clemson, and it was trailing Alabama 30-7 at halftime of its game in Tuscaloosa on Sept. 28 after having a bye week.

The Florida game was the other game the Bulldogs played after a bye week, and UGA trailed 13-6 at halftime of that contest before winning 34-20.

The nature of bowl prep raises even more concerns for Georgia’s ability to get off to a fast start against Notre Dame in the Sugar Bowl.

Smart explained that the reality of modern-day roster management has changed the way teams go about their bowl practices.

“With the way college football is now with the portal,” Smart said at the coaches’ joint press conference on Tuesday, “you lose players, you just can’t afford to not have depth in practice like you really want to practice.”

Lanning said he didn’t want to use the layoff as an excuse for the Ducks’ slow start, but analysts noted his team didn’t appear to be playing as fast, and Oregon was missing the crisp offensive execution early that led to a 13-0 season.

“It’s really just hard to manage, hard to deal with in terms of that space and how you keep your players in shape, but in football shape and game shape,” Smart said during UGA’s bowl prep leading up to the team traveling to New Orleans last Sunday.

“That’s the bigger dilemma. Do you lose rhythm? I mean, you watch it most times in ballgames. People that have those long breaks, it can affect how you play, and we’re trying our best to manage that.”

Both Georgia and Notre Dame have also had the manage the tragic distraction of terroristic act that occurred in the early morning hours of New Year’s Day, when a man drove a truck through pedestrian traffic on Bourbon Street, killing 15 people and injuring dozens of others.

The horrific act led to the game being postponed from its originally scheduled kickoff time of 8:45 p.m. on Wednesday to 4 p.m. on Thursday at Caesar’s Superdome.

Both teams held closed workouts on Wednesday, but to Smart’s point, contact is at a minimum this close to game time due to limited personnel and caution to ensure no further injuries.

Smart pointed out that, while teams that played in opening round games have the benefit of more recent outings, there’s also added risk of injury.

Notre Dame coach Marcus Freeman, who saw Irish sacks leader Rylie Mills suffer a season-ending knee injury in the 27-17 win over Indiana on Dec. 20, said the Irish were ready to embrace the first-round game.

“We embraced Week 13 (Dec. 7), which was the conference championship week, as our bye week,” said Freeman, whose team is an independent and doesn’t play in a conference.

“We had to have that mindset; we’re going to use this as our bye week, and the conference champions are going to use the first round as their bye week,” he said.

“You have to embrace it as a challenge for your

program, and the minute you don’t, I think you open up doors for excuses, and that’s not something we’re going to do.”

The Sugar Bowl looks to be a challenging game for both the Bulldogs and the Irish for several reasons, on several fronts, with the winner advancing to play Penn State at 7:30 p.m. on Jan. 9 in the Orange Bowl CFP semifinal in Miami Gardens, Fla.

Texas plays Ohio State in the Cotton Bowl at 7:30 p.m. on Jan. 10 in Arlington, Texas.