Everything Kane Wommack Said About Georgia Game, Preparing for Vanderbilt

Full transcript and press conference video from Crimson Tide defensive coordinator Kane Wommack.

Sep 28, 2024; Tuscaloosa, Alabama, USA; Alabama Crimson Tide head coach Kalen DeBoer and defensive coordinator Kane Wommack lobby the officials / Gary Cosby Jr.-Imagn Images

TUSCALOOSA, Ala.—  Alabama's head coach Kalen DeBoer and coordinator Nick Sheridan and Kane Wommack spoke to the media Monday morning to review the Crimson Tide's win against Georgia and look ahead to Saturday's road game at Vanderbilt.

Here's everything defensive coordinator Kane Wommack had to say:

Opening statement:

"Looking back on the week against Georgia, thought — very proud of our players and their ability to compete and find a way to finish. I thought going into the game, from a gameplan perspective, we saw about what we expected to get from Georgia offensively.

"Certainly, their mentality was to take some shots downfield on some younger guys and test our secondary. I thought we handled that really well early on. We did a really nice job in the first half. Guys competed well, were in the right spots, executed really well on third down, and then we were able to create some takeaways and make their quarterback uncomfortable, which was one of our keys to victory and something we knew we had to do. It was going to be challenging, as I told you last week, to get takeaways off of them, but that was a huge key to the game.

"I thought, for us, we had 10 game-changers — I’ve talked to you before about those things, takeaways, sacks, three-and-outs, and I guess a safety would count into that. We wanted to get 8-plus, and we got 10 in the game. Probably the thing that shows up the most was our lack of ability to get off the field on fourth down. We had seven different times we didn’t get off the field on fourth down. They were 7-0. They were 3-of-15 on third down, and then were able to execute on fourth down to keep drives alive.

"When you go up 30-7, you’re playing a very different style game, from a defensive perspective, essentially because that team now has four downs to get a first down. Typically, what they did, and as what most teams would do, they’re going to be way more aggressive on first and second down, take more shots downfield, knowing that they’re going to be in a go scenario on fourth down. It’s one of the most challenging things to handle as a defense. It’s even different than two-minute because you are now defending four downs and they have time, they can take their time, they can take those shots downfield. I thought, at times, we handled it really well to get them to fourth-down situations, which is hard enough as it is, but we were not able to execute and get off the field. We needed one more stop, one more takeaway, and certainly, we need to be able to clean up some of the big plays. If we get off the field on fourth down, some of those things don’t happen in the first place.

"I thought, for us, as a coaching staff, we did a good job making some of those adjustments. You can’t play in the second half in straight zone coverage. If you look at Carson Beck over the course of his career, the dude does a tremendous job of picking you apart in straight zone coverage. You have to be able to mixup man and zone. We did some of those things against him, but certainly, I thought he did a really nice job in the second half of hitting some explosives that made the game closer than what we wanted from a defensive perspective.

"Disappointed in a number of things that we did not finish well enough in the second half. Very proud of the fight of our players. You look at the fourth downs, you look at some of the takeaway opportunities that we missed on. When that happens over and over again in a game, too many times, you see a defense essentially fold and give in, and I thought our guys continued to fight all the way until he very end, when a guy, Zabien Brown, gets an interception. High praise for him to be able to stay in the fight. I thought it was a great learning experience for some of our younger players. Coach DeBoer mentioned this, we’ve all had experiences, as coaches and as players, whether we were here or transferred from another program, you’ve had experiences where you’ve had to push through adversity. But now we’ve done that together, and I think there’s a certain level of team chemistry that comes with experiences like that that we need to take moving forward.

"That being said, as we go into Vanderbilt, I think this team is playing with a lot of energy. You look at their sideline, you look at the level of competitive attitude that those guys play with, you see that come from their quarterback. The dude is a real baller. He’s physical. He’s tough. He makes the non-traditional play on the field numerous times. He’s going to be challenging for us when you look at an option-style offense and the way their quarterback navigates their offense. You can tell there’s a confidence from the rest of his teammates that I think he breathes into their football team. You see it on the sidelines. When you watch live copies, the defense feeds into it. The whole team is into it. They play with a great bit of enthusiasm and energy.

"We’ve got to do a great job of going from a game that had a lot of attention and a lot of momentum swings and found a way to win to do the same thing over and over again. Success, if you allow it, will breathe complacency into your program. You have to fight to be able to play to the standard week in and week out. That’s certainly going to be the challenge for us this week."

On Domani Jackson...

"Domani has been a real quiet, consistent piece of our program and our defense the last four games. I think the other night he got one ball caught on him. Does a real good job at the point of attack. From a downfield presence very consistent in technique. He has become a very physical player, which is exciting to see, that toughness that we really challenged him in the off-season. His ability to go make plays on the ball and in the run game and the perimeter game he did a real nice job of that in the last game. We brought out a pressure package we had been working on all off-season and preparing and fortunately were able to hold it until we got into SEC play. First time we called it Domani did exactly what we wanted him to do in that situation, they threw the ball out on the perimeter, and he made the interception. You want to see guys who work hard in preparation and be rewarded on game day. You can point to multiple times we worked that exact process we thought they were going to go to and driving the ball. You can pretty much almost prepare practice reps, multiple practice reps, against exactly what happened, and that’s pretty cool.”

On showing new pressures against Georgia...

"When you face somebody like Carson Beck that’s so experienced, one of the things we’ve always been able to hang our hat on as a defense is that we are going to show disguise. We are going to give them a pre-snap picture and then give them a different picture post-snap. And sometimes we are going to show a pre-snap picture, an immediate post-snap picture, and then switch that picture and that’s where we got a couple of things where you could tell we got him a little bit off-kilter and he threw us the ball a couple of times just simply because we’re showing him one picture pre-snap, a different picture right at the snap, and then rotating to something else entirely as the play is going on, and we were able to affect him a number of times. Pressure allows you to be able to speed up the quarterback’s tempo in the throw game. When you are doing some of those disguises, if you have had pressure on the quarterback early on it allows those disguises to work for you at a much higher rate. So we were schematically committed to getting in the backfield and making sure we made him uncomfortable early. I thought we were able to do that and so it kind of disrupted his timing. I’ll say this, that young man (Beck) did a tremendous job of continuing the fight. I think he’s one of the best quarterbacks in the country and showed his ability to fight through some of the adversity. Very impressed by him. Very good football team. I think Coach Smart did a very good job of keeping his team in the fight and trust overall in the team.”

On leading the nation in pass breakups...

"From a schematic standpoint, we play a lot of what we call vision style coverage, and even when we're playing man coverage, there are elements of vision that are based into some of our hook drops and hold droppers that we're able to read the eyes of the quarterback and react. So when you can put your eyes on the quarterback, now you're not just defending people or grass, but you're defending the people on the grass that the quarterback wants to throw the ball to.

"We went to more of a vision-oriented defense in 2014. My dad when he was the defensive coordinator at Ole Miss, got it from Monte Kiffin, who my dad had GAed for years ago back in 1978. and then my dad had GAed for Lou Holtz and Monte Kiffin, so that relationship stayed all the way through the years. And then in 2014, we got kind of the Seattle Seahawks "Legion of Boom." Back when they were the "Legion of Boom," they were the No. 1 team in the NFL. They were taking the ball off people more than anyone else, and they were playing with this vision-style coverage. And so we got into doing those same type of things in 2014 at Ole Miss. We became the number one scoring defense in the country, number one in the country in interceptions, and we’ve never looked back at the element of putting vision on the quarterback and a number of different concepts defensively be it zone or even man it has been an opportunity to make more plays on the ball.”

On Jehiem Oatis...

"I think Jehiem, obviously coming from the offseason, coming off an injury, he's still finding and hitting his stride, working to hit his stride. I think he's taking steps in the right direction, I think there's growth there, but certainly we want to continue to see him take steps in the right direction. I think as he continues to take those steps he has really high potential and an opportunity to impact this team in a large way."

On Qua Russaw...

"I don't know what percentage he would tell you he was at. I think Qua worked so hard over these last two weeks to get himself back to a position where he could contribute and help his team win the football game. Again, I cannot stress enough how important and valuable Jeff Allen and his staff are to our success. They treat our players with great care, and maximize the opportunity to create value for themselves on gameday. For them, great communication, what is Qua feeling, what are the steps that we need to take to get him prepared to go play. We weren't really sure how many snaps we were gonna get out of him, or how far we were going to be able to push until really pregame. Then once he got out there and was feeling good, and so I think he ended up with 24 snaps on the game. I told the players on Sunday, think about all the work Qua put in these last two weeks, to now get out on the field and create a takeaway for our defense and get 24 snaps in the game. When players go through some of that injury adversity to be able to really push, to get through so you can get back on the field on gameday.

On preventing easy access throw...

"I thought for a majority of the night we did a good job with that. When we didn't, it was because of -- you know, fundamentally we weren't putting our eyes on the quarterback and driving the ball. A lot of easy access throws are either you're denying that access throw by your alignment and your leverage, or you're denying it with vision so when the quarterback goes to throw the ball out on the perimeter you're able to break off the quarterback's vision. A couple of times we didn't do a good enough job of that. But I thought particularly, Zabien did a nice job of defending the perimeter, of holding the lateral leverage that you have to do in order to defend the perimeter screen game. Then really, for the most part I thought we tackled well the majority of the night. I thought there were really two key missed tackles in the game, both of them were for explosive plays and one for a touchdown, Keon Sabb. We miss a guy, they had us in kind of an and-go deal, nice job on their part, we've got to collision the guy at the top of the route and probably can end it right then and there. But they're gonna make plays too. When they make plays we've gotta be able to talk about limiting explosives and none for touchdowns. You've gotta be able to get the guy on the ground and give us a chance to play great red zone defense. In that situation, we didn't do it there, and then we had another one out on the perimeter where Red just didn't drive the hitch route the way he needed to. Those are things that certainly we have to continue to work on and get better at."