Kane Wommack is halfway through his first season as Alabama football's defensive coordinator.
Six games in, the Crimson Tide is one of seven SEC defenses to allow more than 20 points per game. It's one of five SEC defenses to allow more than 340 yards per game. It's one of four SEC defenses to allow at least 125 yards rushing per game.
Alabama coach Kalen DeBoer sees the positives. He sees a defense that's allowing 4.64 yards per play, tied for 16th best in college football and tied for fourth best in the SEC.
"We're making some teams earn it," DeBoer said. "But we just have to get off the field."
What is the state of Wommack's defense six games in?
The Alabama defensive coordinator sees a unit that continues to work through growing pains, that is starting to show wrinkles and nuances, but that is trying to execute a brand-new base defense.
"That's ultimately the give and take that we're trying to look at every single week," Wommack said. "What can we go execute at a high level and do it consistently, and yet still have enough wrinkles that we're not a vanilla defense that the teams feel like, OK, they're able to lock in and attack?"
DeBoer sees the defensive growing pains as part of the "process," part of the "progress" of instituting new systems.
"We don't have a lot of these bank reps from a year ago with all our guys, or even 10 or 11 games worth," DeBoer said. "It's new things that pop up, but we try to make the simplest adjustments to where our guys can still play fast."
It's something opponents are trying to take advantage of whether it's through different looks, such as South Carolina's run game out of 12 personnel, or keeping the Crimson Tide 's defense on the field, a unit that has run 83 more plays than a Crimson Tide offense that averages 27 minutes of possession per game.
Alabama has seen offensive looks it wasn't expecting. The Crimson Tide has faced multiple drives lasting nearly 10 minutes.
"When those drives continue to stack on top of each other, and there's more plays that your defense is having to play, it starts to wear you down a little bit more," DeBoer said.
Wommack admits the defensive scheme can only go so far. It's about execution on third and fourth down, a scenario the Alabama defense sees at least 18 times per game.
For Wommack, it's about putting his defense in a position to succeed and getting his unit off the field as quickly as possible.
"Ultimately, it doesn't matter what we call," Wommack said. "If we can't execute it to consistency, we're going to have a problem."
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 is the state of Kane Wommack's Alabama football defense in 2024?
