Kane Wommack couldn't wait to address what happened to Alabama football's defense vs. Vanderbilt .
The Crimson Tide defensive coordinator entered the interview room at Mal Moore Athletic Facility four minutes before the press conference was scheduled to start, and made his thoughts on the Crimson Tide's 40-35 loss to Vanderbilt instantly known.
"I didn't think we played the game the way it was supposed to be played from a defensive perspective," Wommack said.
From there, Wommack was off.
In an opening statement that lasted nearly five minutes, Wommack went through each of Alabama 's keys to victory against the Commodores — creating takeaways, getting off the field on third down, leading a defense that's intense, urgent and consistent — and chalked each up as a failure.
And to Wommack, that lack of success is not because of the players. It's not because of the assistant coaches. It's because of him.
"We don't get any of our keys to victory done, we don't play with Bama fundamentals, that ultimately falls on me as the defensive coordinator," Wommack said. "It's my responsibility to make sure we get our players to play at the highest level possible and to become the best versions of themselves on game day. And we certainly did not get that done on Saturday."
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Before getting in the weeds about specifics that hurt Alabama Saturday afternoon, specifics that date back to the second half of the Crimson Tide's win against Georgia Sept. 28 , Wommack broke down the Alabama fundamentals: playing with tremendous effort, finish, hard-shoulder tackling, playing with violent hands, block destruction, urgency, takeaways.
"We did not do that to any level of consistency," Wommack said. "Certainly, that's not acceptable, not something that any of us as coaches or players are going to accept from ourselves."
Alabama now has urgency, Wommack said.
On Sunday after Alabama's first loss in the Kalen DeBoer era, Wommack said the defensive players has a "good demeanor" and were "workmanlike."
It's a mentality Wommack already feels will translate into a good response 11 a.m. Saturday at Bryant-Denny Stadium against South Carolina .
"I think we're going to play with a level of urgency that our fans would appreciate and (the) response that we all expect for Alabama to ave on defense going into this week," Wommack said.
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: Kane Wommack talks Alabama football defense performance vs Vanderbilt
