ATHENS — Kirby Smart often states a desire to always be getting better.

So it’s fair to wonder where the Bulldogs have improved since the team’s off week. The Bulldogs beat previously No. 1 Texas 30-15, authoring perhaps their most impressive performance of the season.

What has followed in the two games since are a lackluster 34-20 win over Florida and a humbling 28-10 loss to Ole Miss.

For a Georgia program that has often played its best football in November, the Bulldogs don’t seem to be peaking at the most important time of the season.

“The improvement is not seen sometimes in two games,” Smart said. “It’s seen over a course of time, and it’s a continuum, right? It’s not like we’re saying, ‘Okay, it’s this jump.’ It’s like every practice we have since the bye week. We’ve had, I don’t know, not 14, but 14 days. We’ve had a lot of practices where the improvement for us is these younger players that have gotten more reps and continue to get better.”

Smart did go out of his way to highlight one of those younger players in running back Nate Frazier. Since the off week, Frazier has been Georgia’s leading rusher, totaling 130 yards on 32 carries. He scored touchdowns in both of those games.

But there have been growing pains for Frazier. He had a taunting penalty in the win over Florida and then fumbled the ball twice in the loss to Ole Miss. One of those was a costly turnover that halted a promising Georgia drive.

“I thought Nate did a really good job,” Smart said. “Unfortunately, he had a turnover, but he ran the ball really hard. We talked all week about how they go after the ball.”

On the season, Frazier has 72 carries for 333 yards and 3 touchdowns. Down the stretch, he’s primed to improve upon those numbers as Trevor Etienne continues to deal with a rib injury.

Etienne had only 6 carries in the game against Ole Miss, rushing for 24 yards.

Part of the reason for the meager rushing total can be traced back to the offensive line, another away where Georgia has tried to really improve in the weeks since the bye.

The results have been mixed, to put it kindly.

“We worked really hard on some protection things that we wanted to do differently on offense,” Smart said. “We’ve been able to utilize some of those. Some of those were in the Florida game, not necessarily in the Ole Miss game where we were in a little bit more pass-happy situation.”

Georgia needs to get its running game going, especially with the passing offense being what it is at the moment. The Bulldogs face a Tennessee front this week that is among the best in the nation in terms of rush defense. Tennessee ranks ninth in rush defense, which is actually a step down from Ole Miss. The Rebels have the No. 2 ranked rush defense nationally.

As for Georgia, the Bulldogs ranked 15th in the SEC in rushing yards and rushing attempts per game.

“Obviously the stats aren’t what we want them to be,” offensive lineman Dylan Fairchild said. “Again, I would just go back to Coach Smart’s point, you know. We’ve played a lot of really good defenses that stop the run and to our benefit, that helps us, you know. That helps us in harder games. That helps us in future games. It helps us get better and we’ve just tried to get better from week to week. I think that’s the biggest thing is just keeping it going.”

Georgia’s game against Tennessee is set for a 7:30 p.m. ET start on ABC.