What Kane Wommack Said To Kick Off Week 3 For The Alabama Crimson Tide

The Alabama defense has put on two strong performances through two weeks of action and looks to keep it going as the competition steps up.

Kane Wommack / Joe Gaither Screenshot

The Alabama defense has only allowed 16 points through two contests but the competition takes a serious step up this week as the Crimson Tide heads to Wisconsin to play in Camp Randall Stadium. Alabama's defensive coordinator spent time with the media on Monday to jumpstart the third game week of the year.

Opening Statement

"First off, to start, just wanted to take a minute and talk about Que Robinson. His father passed away this past week. Such a difficult thing to go through, the loss of a family member. I can’t think of a young man who has handled that better, personally and with his teammates. He’s a great son and was very supportive of his family and spent time with them this week, and also did a tremendous job of doing the extra things that it takes to prepare for a game. Our condolences go out to him and his family. I’m so proud of who he is as a young man and the leader he is for our team. His teammates really surrounded him well this week, and he went out and played really well for the second week in a row. Certainly want to recognize him.

Looking back on last week, our recap of South Florida, one of the things I told the guys, you’re learning lessons and learning how to get better through success and wins. Not everybody gets to say that in college football right now, so that’s important.

I thought, from a defensive standpoint, we showed up in some critical moments in the game, which was encouraging to see. Some younger players stepped up in those moments as well. I thought the leadership of our defense showed up on the sideline and showed out on the field as well. We had eight 3-and-outs in the game. We had 13, what we call, ‘game-changers.’ I’ve gone over those things with you guys as well. From a situational down standpoint, I thought we were dominant in the game.

We were 17-of-20 overall on third- and fourth-down. We were three-of-four in the red zone holding them to field goals. Really disappointed in the one touchdown that we gave up. I thought we should’ve been better there and give ourselves another chance at a stop on third down, so we have to continue to improve. It’s not OK to give up touchdowns in the red zone, even though we were able to win three out of the four. No touchdowns, again, to begin and end each half. That’s critical for starting fast as a defense and finishing well. I think in the fourth quarter, over two games, we’re 35-3, which shows that our players are learning to finish, and then zero explosive passes given up, which is really challenging for an offense like that, that goes fast, takes shots downfield, and do a number of things that force you to get your cleats out of the ground and then capitalize on it in the passing game.

Probably the most disappointing thing is we had a number of explosive runs that were given up. We had a couple of misfits. We had three times where we did not execute our pressure properly, so we had essentially missed patterns in the pressure that we bring, and we need to be able to capitalize off those things, and then two missed tackles. From that standpoint, I thought we let the quarterback — you know, when we call some of these pressures, the intent is to get the quarterback on the ground and make him uncomfortable, and because we did not execute in those moments, we didn’t take advantage of that, and thus they took advantage of that in the run game. Those are things we need to get cleaned up.

Extremely disappointed in the lack of takeaways that we were not able to create. Their team did. They created three of them. We were minus-three in the turnover margin, which is absolutely unacceptable by our defense. It has to be something that we focus on, day in and day out. It’s what we preach. It’s who we are. It’s what we believe in. It did not show up in this game. It’s something we have to continue to push and pressure and focus on getting that done on game day. 

With that, moving on to next week, against Wisconsin, first road game for us. I think it’ll be a great test going up there, in a really tremendous environment. They have a great atmosphere there — beautiful campus, beautiful university. They’ve got their traditions, the third-quarter jump around. I think our guys have to lean into those things. I think they have to enjoy it and appreciate it and recognize some of the greatness of college football, then go play the game at a really high level.

I’ve always been impressed with Luke Fickell. I’ve had connections with him over the years. Years ago, when he was at Ohio State, he came down and visited us at Ole Miss and learned some of the things we were doing defensively under my dad. I’ve kept in touch with him over the years. Very impressed with his team. I think his team embodies who he is as an individual: very tough, very demanding of his players, and you can see that there’s a toughness and a physicality in the way they play. I think they’re improving in that in year two from what we’ve seen so far.

We’re going to be facing a well-established offense. Phil Longo has had success at a number of stops and has had tremendous quarterbacks that he has developed, and he has another one in Tyler Van Dyke who is developing in their system. You can see him starting to lean in from Week 1 to Week 2 and what they’re trying to do and trying to accomplish. I think he has had great answers over the years, so very impressed by Phil for what he’s done over the years. In Year 2, you’re starting to see some of the new wrinkles that they want to do offensively. I think they’re effectively running the ball better than what they did a year ago. You can tell that they’re schematically focused on that, and their players, from a fundamental standpoint, have improved in terms of the run game.

It’ll be a good challenge for us. I think they have some impressive skill, some guys that can win one-on-one matchups, and we’ll have to do a good job of mixing zone and man coverage in order to minimize their effectiveness in the passing game.

With that, I’ll take questions."

On teaching points from coverage breakdowns that USF missed on...

"There were two times that I thought guys were down the field. One was, they were going fast three plays in a row. You’ve seen it at, Oklahoma State was probably the team that was most famous for it, but back before they would, when a guy would substitute, now we give the defense a chance to sub where back in the day we didn’t use to do that, so guys would run the next wide receiver out, the next wide receiver out. And that’s what they tried to do. We had a substitution issue where we didn’t feel like we had the time to get somebody back out there and so we put a young corner in a tough spot where he was kind of in limbo. He wasn’t in press coverage, he wasn’t in off coverage and he just got run by because his eyes were in a bad spot.

"The other one was just a technique error where a guy released inside. We were denying the outside release. We forced him to release inside, which is probably the only reason they didn’t connect on that ball. We went back and looked at this a long time ago, if you look at inside release fade balls, the ones that we forced the receiver to release inside versus if he gets the outside release on you, the completion percentage is far less on an inside release. So that was probably the only thing that saved us. However, we put our eyes back in the backfield when we did get beat back inside instead of staying on top shoulder. So those are things that young players have to learn. They have to get corrected moving forward and so that’s really going to be the key, is making sure that those young guys learn from those mistakes."

On the play that got Justin Jefferson ejected...

"Obviously it’s always disappointing when you have a dynamic player that is not available for one half of the game. We looked at that play and looked at it from about every angle that I could. I think we’ve just got to tell the young man, keep playing. So, it is what it is. We’ll deal with it and get ourselves ready for him in the second half.

"On what he’ll spend the most time on in practice after watching USF and Wisconsin film: I think from the USF game, some of the things that we talked about, just in terms of the run fits in particular. We gotta get some of those things cleaned up. Really it was just the explosive plays. They had a number of runs that I thought we played really well, but we’ve got to do that consistently and consistently when teams are going fast. And structurally and schematically, that’s what USF is built to do. They’re meant to try to get you on your heels so that you will misfit something or miss tackle. And I thought they did that a couple of times against us, so we’ve got to continue to learn from them."

Looking ahead to Wisconsin...

"I think this is a team that has taken great ownership of the physicality that they play with, with their ability to run the football, the toughness that they have and carry. They’re big people. I’ll never forget years ago, I was at the University of Arkansas and we had a great team, went to an SEC championship and ended up playing Wisconsin in a bowl game. And we were kind of the biggest team in the SEC and the biggest team week-in and week-out that we faced. And you look across the sideline and you thought ‘Oh, they look like us.’ They’re big people. They’re massive people. So that’s going to be a great challenge for us to be able to match that toughness and that physicality on their own turf."

On Yibambe...

"The Wommack boys, we are Marvel fans. We love the Marvel movies, and so when the movie Black Panther years ago when that came out, gosh what was that? Maybe 2015, 2016, something like that. That movie came out and I’m always like, I guess I’m a nerd when it comes to some of those things, so I was like ‘What does Yibambe mean?’ So I look it up and it’s actually, I think it’s an African Bantu language word that means hold fast the line. So I thought, what a fitting chant for a red zone defense, right? To hold the line. So we talk about that, doesn’t matter how they get down in the red zone, whether we’ve turned the ball over and whether they’ve gone on a 16-play drive and it’s first-and-goal from the five-yard line, everyone has to Ybambe, we have to hold fast the line. We have to do our 1/11th to be able to hold the line in that situation. And I think that’s something that our players have leaned into over the years, and we’ve been successful at a number of places in the red zone and I think we’re taking steps in the right direction here as well."

On Jihaad Campbell:

"Jihaad is a very gifted athlete, but he plays the game the way it's supposed to be played from the linebacker position. He is relentless in his pursuit of the ball, he plays with an extremely high motor, he's got great juice and energy. We always talk about effort, and finish. It's 4-to-6 seconds from point A to point B with violent intentions when we get there, and he certainly embodies that. Very proud of the effort he's been playing with, I think that's a direct tribute to him leading us in tackles through two games, as much as anything."

On Tim Keenan:

"Man, so impressed with Tim Keenan. I think fundamentally, he is playing with great hand placement, great block recognition, physical up front. He is doing such a better job of disengaging and getting off of blocks than where he was in the spring and where he was a year ago. That was something we really challenged him to be able to create production for himself by finishing plays. I think he has done a tremendous job in that regard. Very proud of the work that he's put in and I'm glad to see he's being rewarded for that work that he puts in practice every day."

On getting stops off turnovers:

"I think defenses, you can look at it two different ways. You can look at it as, 'hey, there's such adversity and all the momentum is on their sideline,' versus 'this is an opportunity for us to regain momentum for our football team.' So when you're coming on the field off a turnover, what we call a sudden-change situation, our players have to understand this is an opportunity for us as a defense to create momentum back for ourselves. The momentum is most certainly going to be on their sideline in that moment, you get offensive coordinators that are going to be a little more aggressive in that moment, they're gonna open up the playbook in that situation. So it's really critical, right, that you have great communication, you play with an effort that matches the motivation that they have and the momentum that they have on that side of the ball, and I thought our players did a really tremendous job in those situations, in those moments of getting stops for the most part. We weren't consistent enough in it, but certainly steps in the right direction.

On adding Colin Hitschler to the staff:

"So, Hitsch and I have worked together before, probably the best gameday mind adjustment-wise that I've been around. He sees things up in the box, does a great job of being kind of my eyes and ears up there, from a communication standpoint on gameday. I've been around some really special defensive coaches over the years, and he's probably at the top of the list in terms of his ability to create value as a defensive staff on gameday. He is somebody I certainly lean on and rely on up there. My dad told me that years ago, if you're gonna be up in the box, you better have somebody great on the field, if you're gonna be on the field you better have somebody great in the box. I think Hitsch does a tremendous job from that standpoint. One of the ways that I think he creates value for his players is the way he coaches those guys to understand offensive recognition, how to recognize what is going to happen, play with anticipation, we've talked about that before. Defense is inherently reactionary, we're trying to get out guys to play with anticipation. I think he does that as good as anybody. Very happy for him to be here with us and excited to be back in the foxhole with him again.