Warren McClendon shares what Georgia wants to clean up against Missouri

Georgia has looked the part as the No. 1 team in the country through four weeks. But that doesn’t mean the Bulldogs can’t improve, as scary as that sounds.

Warren McClendon said there’s one area in particular Georgia needs to shore up.

McClendon held his media availability on Thursday and said little mistakes such as penalties have been a weak spot through four games — despite the perfect 4-0 record. The Bulldogs have committed the second-fewest penalties in the SEC this season, but heading into this week’s game against Missouri, McClendon said he still wants Georgia to clean that up.

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“Just little mistakes,” McClendon said. “No penalties, finishing in the red zone. Also penalties. Penalties hurt us. Just cleaning that stuff up.”

Kirby Smart on Georgia’s redzone issues: It’s fun for Jack Podlesny, not great for us

Jack Podlesny came into the season expected to kick a lot — of PATs. Instead, No. 1 Georgia‘s red zone woes have put his leg to work with eight made field goal attempts through four weeks this season.

With an overall 96.2 percent (25-26) success at scoring on red zone attempts, only 17 of those have come via touchdown. For head coach Kirby Smart, the only good thing about that number is that his Bulldogs have scored 12 times (three per game) on the ground in the red zone thus far.

“It goes back to the run game,” Smart said. “When the field tightens up and shrinks, that’s where the run game is more glaring because the boxes are tighter. There are less people in parts of the field, and they are in your front yard. You have to block them and run through them.

“Some of them are just misses. … We have to do a better job. We’ve looked at it really hard. First down run percentage, second down run percentage. Third down conversions in the red area are critical because they get you a new set of downs. We’ve been there a lot, but we haven’t converted as much as we need to. If it all had to boil down to one thing, I would say accuracy in the passing game, and then being effective at running the ball at the heavy boxes.”