Alabama's Dallas Turner explains how the Crimson Tide have improved this season

It’s been a long and at times challenging road for Alabama to get to Week 9 sitting at 7-1 coming out of a bye week. And for anyone who has watched, it’s clear the Alabama team heading into November is a stark departure from the team that lost to Texas and struggled with USF.

Joining the “Paul Finebaum Show” on Wednesday, star Crimson Tide edge rusher Dallas Turner shared some insight into the continual improvement. Turner explained that the internal focus from players never wavered from week-to-week improvement.

“Honestly every week we grow as a team. Every week. It’s just what we do in practice, how we come together as practice players and just practicing the right habits every day. You practice how you play and stuff like that, so every day in practice we try and emphasize making good habits, finishing plays and just emphasizing playing for all 60 minutes,” Turner said.

Since losing to Texas and squeaking past USF, 17-3, Alabama has not exactly been dominant but has looked more complete by the week. There are certainly still warts to the passing game and the running game is underwhelming to some, but the defense is stout and the offense keeps finding what works.

And Turner shared that building championship habits and improving as a team isn’t wholly limited to the practice field and weight room, either.

“It’s on and off the field. You create discipline off the field as much as you do on the field. So even just being more disciplined, making smart decisions on the field and not costing the team any penalties or stuff like that. But you know, just finishing plays every day in practice, just having the right techniques in practice, too. Cleaning up on things that we can improve on as a team,” Turner said.

Turner thinks he and his teammates have grown closer, too

Turner has become one of the team’s newer leaders this season, and when he made an appearance on Finebaum on Wednesday, he opened up about his leadership style.

“First and foremost you gotta lead by example by doing the little things right and by just being consistent every day in what you do,” Turner said. “Putting in a lot of work every day, putting in extra work and stuff like that. When you guys see older guys do things like that they tend to follow that and the energy is everywhere on the team. It’s just kind of a monkey see monkey do thing though, but you know it’s in a good direction.”

Turner has certainly been leading by example this season, and leading the SEC in sacks this year with eight of them through eight games, which also ranks fifth in the nation across all of college football. He’s also added 34 tackles, 10.5 tackles for loss, and two forced fumbles to his stat line, playing a crucial role in Alabama’s defense that’s been having one of its most impressive seasons in recent history.

Team chemistry goes hand in hand with great leadership within a team, a department in which Turner revealed the Crimson Tide also has all their bases covered in as well.

“I mean honestly with the type of leaders we have on this team and the type of camaraderie we have as a unit, as a whole team it’s a lot of good energy on and off the field,” Turner said. “You’re seeing a lot more guys hang out with each other off the field, doing little things like just getting something to eat, or going to the bowling alley, or something like that. It’s just little things that we do on and off the field that make us the team that we are now.”