BATON ROUGE, La. — Jihaad Campbell boils down Alabama football's defensive success to a simple three-step recipe.
"Just get on the field, do our job, make sure we get off the field so our offense can score," the Alabama junior linebacker said.
It's an approach that worked Saturday night against LSU .
In Alabama's 42-13 win against the Tigers at Tiger Stadium, LSU scored one touchdown — a 12-yard touchdown pass from Garrett Nussmeier to Kyren Lacy with 11 seconds left in the game — and two field goals.
The Crimson Tide allowed 343 yards of offense, but won the turnover battle: a Campbell strip sack, a Deontae Lawson interception and a Bray Hubbard interception.
That was enough to give the offense a chance to slowly extend its lead and put more and more pressure on an LSU offense that could find no momentum against Kane Wommack's defensive scheme.
Yet Lawson knows there are still doubters, those that see the "bend" in the Crimson Tide 's defense that has rarely shown up in its past two games against Missouri and LSU.
"A lot of people doubt this defense," Lawson said. "But we knew what we were capable of. We knew we put the work in. We prepared the right way. It showed on the field today."
It's a defense coach Kalen DeBoer loves, one that mixed up what Nussmeier was seeing, one that mixed up pressured up front and made plays to revitalize the entire sideline.
It's all DeBoer could ask for.
"They might give up a play here or there, but they move on to the next one, go out and execute," DeBoer said. "They're getting that mindset where one yard's too many. They didn't want to give up that touchdown at the end either, you know? So a lot of pride on that side."
It was pride Lawson saw develop over the off week, which created enough momentum for Saturday's spectacle.
"We was locked in like never before," Lawson said.
It's a defense Campbell feels will continue to be locked in. It's a unit he says will continue to follow the recipe.
"We still got more work to do," Campbell said. "You know, a lot of people don't even know that yet, but we got a lot of more work to do."
Colin Gay covers Alabama football for The Tuscaloosa News, part of the USA TODAY Network. Reach him at cgay@gannett.com or follow him @_ColinGay on X, formerly known as Twitter.
This article originally appeared on The Tuscaloosa News: Will Alabama football defense recipe for success vs LSU work for rest of 2024?
