Kane Wommack reveals areas where Alabama's defense can take the next step

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. – Alabama’s defense finished among the top 25 nationally in nearly every statistical category last season, Kane Wommack’s first calling plays for the Crimson Tide.

But the defensive coordinator sees plenty of room for improvement during the 2025 offseason. Speaking to local reporters after Friday morning’s spring practice, Wommack shared his points of emphasis for the Alabama defense throughout its 15-practice spring camp.

“First off, we want to be able to create more negative plays,” Wommack said. “That’s hard to see a little bit when the quarterback’s not live. That’s a good thing, that we don’t let our quarterbacks go live right now. But at the same time, I thought we took some great strides and had some really good numbers from an efficiency standpoint defensively.

“But we were not anywhere where we needed to be in terms of creating negative plays. That has to be a point of emphasis from a fundamental standpoint, schematically, and then just having an understanding of that.”

Alabama finished the 2024 season with 71 tackles for loss and 25 sacks. The TFLs ranked ninth in the SEC, while the sacks were tied for 13th out of 16 SEC schools (Mississippi State was last with 10). It was the fewest sacks for a Crimson Tide defense since 22 in 2013.

While it wasn’t great at getting the quarterback on the ground, Alabama was able to force plenty of turnovers a year ago. The Tide forced 28 total turnovers, which included 17 interceptions and 11 forced fumbles. The 28 takeaways were the second-most in the conference and tied for the fifth-most in the nation. But Wommack felt UA left money on the table.

“We were able to create a lot of takeaways,” Wommack said. “I think we finished (fifth) in the country or something like that in takeaways last year, which was good, but I feel like we left a lot of opportunities out there from the standpoint of our players being able to anticipate. 

“When you play with vision, based on the quarterback’s drop and where his eye progression goes, you have to be able to react to that and play with anticipation as opposed to reaction, and we’re not anywhere where we need to be yet.”

For most of the 2024 season, Alabama’s defense was solid. And a lot of the key pieces from last year’s unit are back – seven draft-eligible defenders chose to return for the 2025 campaign. 

The Tide should field another stingy defense, but what is the next step for Alabama in Year 2 of Kalen DeBoer’s tenure? His defensive coordinator believes it starts with handling success.

“I think the biggest experience that we can all gain from last season is there has to be a sense of urgency to do the same high-level job every single day,” Wommack said. “And I don’t think it was malicious by anybody from a standpoint of maybe you have a good day here, you’re focused here, or walking into this game versus that game. 

“But when you have success, it should breed a sense of urgency to create more success for you. And I don’t think we handled success well as a team, collectively, and I think that hurt us on the field. It obviously hurt us on the field.

“What you want to try and build in these young players is understanding that take the experiences you’ve had and apply them to have a sense of urgency. Not a panic, but a sense of urgency to attack every single rep over and over and over again. And I think that, to me, is what has kept us from being great a year ago.”

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