Everything Kane Wommack Said Rolling into Georgia Week

The Alabama defensive coordinator detailed his thoughts of Georgia to the media on Monday.

Alabama defensive coordinator Kane Wommack discussing upcoming Georgia game. /

TUSCALOOSA, Ala.— Alabama football defensive coordinator Kane Wommack spoke to the media Monday afternoon after the No. 4 Crimson Tide's bye week and prior to the must-see matchup against No. 2 Georgia.

Here's everything Wommack had to say:

Full Transcript

Opening Statement …

"All right, good morning everybody."

"I thought, as a coaching staff and players, we navigated our bye week really well. As I said last week, a bye week can be self-serving in a number of different ways for what your program needs, what your individual players need, some things that we look at schematically on defense. You want to be able to self scout, what you’re giving away, what you’re doing well, what you need to get corrected moving forward. I thought we had a really productive week in that regard."

"Some younger players took some steps in the right direction. We were able to focus and pinpoint on some things fundamentally that we need to continue to work on and execute at a higher level. It was a good week and we got a lot done from that perspective."

"Looking at Georgia, this is obviously a team that has had tremendous success over the last few years. You look at their program, coach Smart and his staff, they’re going into their ninth season together. We’re in our first season together. You think about all the things they have built within that program, they have really done a great job in terms of building a culture, recruiting base, developing great players within their program, and it’s showed up on the field. We’ll have our work cut out for us from that standpoint."

"I think, offensively, Mike Bobo has had a tremendous career. He’s done a great job wherever he’s been. I think he has been very efficient with his offense the last couple of years. He’s done a good job of attacking people. He’s aggressive, takes shots, keeps you guessing, keeps you off-kilter, and has certainly committed to running the football as well."

"I think their quarterback, Carson Beck, is as good as it comes in college football right now. Incredibly efficient with his decision-making. Does not take many sacks. Rarely turns the ball over. Takes care of the football. I think he does a really tremendous job in the intermediate throwing game. He has great accuracy. Really quick release, great decision-maker. Just so impressed by him the more I watch and I’ve probably watched every game from the last couple of years here."

"I think their running backs, they have a number of guys that are very physical runners, very detailed in their footwork. They’re patient, they set blocks up, and certainly can create explosive plays in their run game at any given moment. They’re committed to running the football. You’ve got to do a great job of being consistent in the fundamentals and schematically knocking out the run, down in and down out."

"As an offensive line, they’re big, they’re physical. They’ve been around for a bit, and then they have some pretty impressive offensive skill on the outside as well. It’ll be a great matchup. We’ve got our work cut out for us schematically and logistically and all that, but I think everybody has their work cut out for them. I think Greg Byrne and our administration may have their work cut out for them more than anybody this week. Everybody has a tough job in this building. It’s time to get to work and show up on Saturday."

Generating pressure vs. Carson Beck …

"As an offense, they do a really good job of minimizing the risk for their quarterback. They get the ball out of their hand, they try to establish the run, they get the ball on the perimeter early. They will take shots, and they’ll take shots early in the game, but you’ve got to find that fine balance of playing good, sound coverage, and also make it so that the quarterback doesn’t feel like he can sit in the pocket and pick you apart with long developing plays in the passing game. They do a really good job, if he has time, and he hits most of those things because he’s incredibly accurate at different portions of the field — the short game, the intermediate game, and certainly he can make the long throws down the field. This guy’s a complete quarterback. He’s really as good as I’ve seen in the last couple of years. I think, for us, we have to be mindful of making him uncomfortable, but you want to make sure you’re not sacrificing things from a coverage perspective in order to get that done."

On Christian Robinson…

“C-Rob, we were fortunate enough to both coach under my dad. I thought my dad always did a really great job of developing young coaches underneath him. He treated us all like position coaches. During his time at Ole Miss, he had myself, Christian, who’s had a really tremendous career since he’s left Ole Miss, and then DeMarcus Covington is the defensive coordinator for the New England Patriots and then you’ve got Tray Scott, who’s the D-line coach at Georgia. So those were the four GAs that my dad had over those couple of years there."

“And really, I think, Christian earned enough respect from my dad and the rest of the defensive staff to, his second year, get to coach the inside linebackers and really spend a lot of time with those guys on the field and in the meeting room. And I think that’s a credit to who he is, the character that he has, the work ethic and he’s also a very smart ball coach that’s got a bright future.”

On what Kentucky did well vs. Georgia…

“I thought Kentucky played really hard. They played at a fever pitch. They were physical. They played with great effort and finish. I think they’ve got some guys up front that do a really good job in the run game from a D-line standpoint. And I thought they played the game defensively the way it’s supposed to be played. They were attacking on defense. They didn’t do too much. I think that’s something you’ve gotta be mindful of against these guys."

“They give you a lot of window dressing and eye candy, whatever you wanna call it. A lot of formations, a lot of shifts, a lot of pictures, and you’ve gotta be able to fundamentally line up and execute. And yet at the same time, do enough to be able to create negative plays and takeaways. And so there’s a fine balance there, but I thought Kentucky did a really nice job of that.”

On Yhonzae Pierre…

“I thought Yhonzae continues to have an urgency when he comes out to practice to better himself and thus, this football team. It’s really rewarding and fun as a coach to see a young man mature right in front of you, and I think he is taking steps from a fundamental standpoint, understanding what we do within our scheme to maximize his opportunities when he’s getting out on the field. And he’s just becoming a more consistent football player across the board.”

On relying on returning players, Nick Saban for the “secret” vs. Georgia…

“I think certainly the experience of our players being in big moments, they’ve played in the SEC. They’ve had success in the SEC. They’ve had success against Georgia. Certainly, you wanna rely on the experience of those players. There’s a lot of young players that don’t have those experiences, right. And we talk about experience being finite, but also, as best you can, you want these younger players to be able to draw upon the experience and confidence that comes from guys like Malachi and Deontae and a number of our defensive line that has played in SEC matchups and particularly against Georgia. So those are things that we’re gonna rely on, and hopefully, our experience shows up in the right way Saturday night.”

On how to encourage turnover opportunities vs. Georgia…

“I don’t think the focus changes for us in terms of having an opportunity and a mindset to create takeaway opportunities. We created 13 last week against Wisconsin; we got the ball twice, but we had other opportunities to get the ball, whether it was a sack, caused fumble, a pass breakup, tipped balls or picked balls. We say those things, right, in terms of being able to get our hands on the football. And that certainly is not gonna be any different against these guys."

“It will be a challenge, right. It’s one of those – what do they call it – an unstoppable force against an immovable object. We’re trying to create a lot of takeaways. It’s who we are. It’s what our identity is. And they do a really good job of taking care of the football. And we’ve gotta do our best to be able to be +1 in the turnover margin on Saturday night. I think that’s gonna be a huge piece to the game is who can take care of the football and who can take the football away. I think it’ll be a huge indicator in the outcome of the game.”

On Georgia’s running backs...

“I think schematically I don’t see a lot of difference, there’s some nuance there’s some little things that you see from an offense, things that they worked in the offseason, things that they liked, things that they wanted to add but those are more tweaks. I think this is a very established offensive system. I think they believe in what they do and they have had success in what they do. But these backs are really hungry. They run really had. They’re physical. They can create yards after contact and then when they get in space, they’ve got a couple of guys that can really take advantage of explosive plays in the run game. So we’ll have our work cut out for us because I think it’s not just one guy it's a number of guys that can create explosive things for them in the run game."

On how Alabama’s pass defense has progressed...

“I think when you look at what we want to do, the game nowadays, an extension of the run game is teams being able to take easy-access throws on the perimeter, and at times we want to be mindful of denying those easy access throws and forcing people to throw into tight windows and tight coverage. And there’s a number of different ways to do that, that’s not just always mean man coverage, it means anticipating things in zone coverage and vision coverage and we’re doing a fairly good job right now of challenging routes, challenging receivers, not giving lateral space away but also defending the vertical space. We’ve got to get better at those things, but I think we’ve taken steps in the right direction to be able to limit some of those easy-access windows in the throw game right now."

On how much games like these factored into his decision to come to Alabama...

"I think I’ve said this before but you come to Alabama to compete against the best and to create value for yourself as an individual, as a player, and value for this team by executing when it matters most. I tell the players this all the time, the greatest players always step up in the biggest moments, whether that be."