Kirby Smart preaches the value of becoming a so-called “student of the game” to his players for moments like the one that awaits his Georgia football team in Knoxville, Tenn.

The No. 6-ranked Bulldogs (2-0) will be challenged in their first road game of the season against 15th-ranked Tennessee (2-0) at 3:30 p.m. on Saturday, and with the distraction of 100,000 fans, it will be the equivalent of a closed-book test.

It’s why Smart is counting on his players to have themselves prepared and locked into the game plan; the environment will limit on-field communication.

“You just have to be smart about what you ask guys to communicate and say, because it can be frustrating, and it’s loud,” Smart said. “At some points, it’s deafening, but they have an extremely loud environment, and we’ve got to push through it. There’s nothing you can do about that.

“What you can do is focus on your task during the week so that you don’t have to question what you’re doing in that environment.”

Indeed, and the 10th-year Georgia head coach knows there will be times when his players have uncertainty or don’t have the right answer.

Just like taking a test, the proper step after such moments is move on quickly and focus on what’s next.

“The overall mental mindset and makeup of our offseason program is to play with toughness and composure and try to win more moments than the opponent, and there’s going to be a lot of moments in this game,” Smart said.

“If we can win more moments, then we increase our chances. If we worry about past loss moments or future moments, we can’t focus on the current.”

Georgia doesn’t need a perfect score to win the football game, but as noted, the team that makes the fewest mistakes most often emerges victorious.

Tennessee’s defense, like the Bulldogs’ offense, will also be dealing with the crowd noise and will have to make adjustments at the line of scrimmage.

Vols coach Josh Heupel has noted how Georgia’s offense uses shifts and motions to create mismatches and confuse the defenders on their assignments.

Georgia offensive coordinator Mike Bobo has not given the Tennessee staff much film to study in that area, as the Bulldogs have purposely kept their offense and the looks it has presented very basic through the first two games.

Heupel’s offense, meanwhile, has let loose, giving Smart and his staff a great deal to consider and prepare for.

Tennessee’s offense has its tricks, too, as Heupel’s brand of football gives a well-executing offense inherent advantages.

“They complicate things sometimes with that tempo,” Smart said, noting the Vols’ tendency to play a hurry-up style that limits defensive pre-snap adjustments and forces defenders to get lined up quickly.

“They try to dummy you down and limit what you do, and it does, to a sense, do that to you.”

Tennessee’s formations are noted to spread out defenders, too, placing a premium on winning one-on-one matchups and playing well in space.

Georgia’s program has been noted for its defense depth and ability to make key substitutions, but Smart said the relative lack of experience this season — past teams were not as affected by the transfer portal — presents another challenge.

“The problem is getting that many guys’ quality reps against it,” Smart said. “So it’s hard to prepare more than 22 guys because you’re getting ones and twos, and you try to make your defense simple enough that you can execute it and play it and have more people play.”

Playing the first road game of the season is, in itself, a test.

But when you add in the challenges Tennessee’s fast-paced offense presents, along with the relative lack of experience on the Georgia roster and the injuries that have already affected the offensive line cohesion, it explains why the team’s study habits this week are particularly important.

It certainly does not help this Georgia team -- one of the most inexperienced of Smart’s tenure with 54 percent of the players first- or second-year players -- that this is the earliest the Bulldogs have played Tennessee in a season since 1995.