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What held Alabama football defense back in 2024? What Kane Wommack said.
- Story byThe Tuscaloosa News
- What held Alabama football defense back in 2024? What Kane Wommack said.
What's the next step Alabama footbal l can take defensively?
As Kane Wommack , the coordinator of a unit that finished with the ninth-best scoring defense in college football , the one that produced the fourth-most takeaways, pondered the question, his mind immediately went to what went wrong in 2024.
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His call in 2025? "A sense of urgency," Wommack said, one that the Crimson Tide didn't carry consistently through a four-loss 2024 season.
"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 vs. that game," Wommack said. "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."
In losses to Vanderbilt, Tennessee , Oklahoma and Michigan , Alabama allowed nearly 27 points per game — including a season-high 40 points to the Commodores — and more than 335 yards of offense per game.
So what's next?
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Wommack said it starts with the players coming back, the players like LT Overton , Keon Sabb and Deontae Lawson who are the product of the "greatest recruiting job of all" this offseason.
"There was more for us to be able to give," Wommack said. "I think the players see the vision. The older guys in particular see the vision of where we're headed."
It shows belief in the culture, Wommack said, what the Crimson Tide could accomplish in 2025.
Safety Bray Hubbard sees that same potential, especially with how different spring practice has felt from a year ago,
"You're not in necessarily a learning mode," Hubbard said. "Now you can kind of play more faster because you know what to do and you kind of know what you're going to get."
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Wommack has a roster filled with players who know what they are going to get out of Alabama's scheme. So now, in 2025, it's taking that next step by doing what couldn't be done a season ago.
"Take the experiences you've had and apply them to have a sense of urgency," Wommack said. "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, it what has kept us from being great a year ago.
Alabama will end its spring practice schedule with A Day at noon April 12 in Bryant-Denny Stadium. 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: What Kane Wommack said held Alabama football defense back
