Georgia players made a challenging week of preparation for Tennessee even harder on themselves with a subpar practice on Tuesday night, per the head coach.

“They must be feeling themselves a little bit, I was a little disappointed,” Coach Kirby Smart said at his Tuesday night press conference.

“We’ve had about five good Tuesdays in a row, and they were not good today.”

The Bulldogs travel to play at Tennessee at 3:30 p.m. on Saturday in sold-out Neyland Stadium.

The Vols have won 14 straight home games, but they’re coming off a 36-7 loss at Missouri.

Smart was asked if it was harder to get his team’s attention for the upcoming game because of the lopsided nature of Tennessee’s loss.

“I don’t think it had anything to do with Tennessee,” said Smart, who vowed moments after his team’s 52-17 win over Ole Miss to start focusing on the Vols. “I think it’s just a disappointing practice.”

Smart has stressed the difficulty of preparing for Coach Josh Heupel’s Tennessee team because of the uptempo pace and unique spacing.

“It’s a really difficult prep week,” Smart said on Monday. “Probably the hardest one of the year in terms of trying to replicate what they do.”

The eighth-year Georgia head coach -- a former team captain and All-SEC safety with the Bulldogs -- never beat Tennessee as a player.

His respect for Heupel, a former national championship quarterback at Oklahoma, has been made clear.

“I don’t think you can simulate their pace,” Smart said. “They are really good at what they do, they are fast at what they do.”

Smart also said he was uncertain how effective Georgia’s preparation for crowd noise will be.

The Bulldogs have not played well in road games at Auburn and Vanderbilt this season, losing the turnover battle in each of those games.

“I can’t tell you how much (noise prep) helps, I don’t honestly know how much it helps,” Smart said. “It’s hard to measure that.

“Some teams could do it more than we do it, and have a young offense and have a lot of penalties, (or) you could have a very experienced offense and not do it and not have penalties.

" It comes and goes, a lot of it has to do with situation, and your team, and the focus of your team.”

Tuesday’s focus was not good, and Smart said Georgia would rely on “core leadership” and team culture to get the team back on track on Wednesday.