Alabama DC Kane Wommack previews what he's seen from early enrollees in bowl prep

Some high school football players, if they work hard enough to graduate ahead of schedule, are afforded the opportunity to join their college programs a semester early and practice throughout the spring. All but three of Alabama’s 2025 signing class will be joining the program for the spring semester, and some were able to join early enough to travel to Tampa to participate in the Crimson Tide’s bowl preparations.

“It’s great,” Alabama defensive coordinator Kane Wommack said. “When you can sign a young man and then literally within two weeks, he’s on your campus and taking part in practice, those guys – I think our coaches did a really good job in the offseason, in the summertime, during the season of even installing a little bit of our defense to those younger players. So it wasn’t like they came in totally cold turkey.

“They knew some things. But we go right in and they’re taking snaps Day 1, and then they’re going with the scout team and they’re taking snaps, as well. So really excited about those guys. It’ll be great when we can get them in more in spring ball and all that stuff.”

The extra bowl practices and reps throughout the spring allow incoming freshmen to start to adapt to life as a college athlete, get used to the scheduling and strength program, and get a jump start on learning the system the team runs.

Alabama has five signees that have already enrolled and made the trip to Tampa for the ReliaQuest Bowl. Those players include edge rusher Justin Hill, safety Ivan Taylor, tight end Marshall Pritchett, and linebackers Darrell Johnson and Luke Metz.

Wommack was very complimentary of the defensive personnel that he gets to coach on his side of the ball.

“I would say from a defensive perspective, it’s a really athletic class,” Wommack said. “Guys that look good in space, move well, can run. So excited to just get our hands on them, whereas before, you would sign a guy and then you’d have to wait six months to show up. It’s pretty awesome. I told our coaches the other day, it’s the closest thing I’ve felt to Christmas morning as a kid – to have new toys out there on the field to play with.”

In addition to the adjustment to scheduling, strength training, and overall life as a college athlete, early enrollees also have to adjust to sharing a field with players significantly older than them, as opposed to being the best athletes on their high school teams.

“All of them are wide-eyed. They all are. That’s part of it,” Wommack said. “I don’t care where you go, there’s some guys that are more ready for college than others just based off of the scheme they ran in high school, maybe the level of competition that they played. But there’s not one guy that walks in with Jihaad Campbell or Domani Jackson or Tim Keenan and thinks, ‘Oh, I know what football is supposed to look like.’ They’re all taking those steps and learning.”

Wommack, who has preached about the value of experience all season long, expressed the positives that come with these early enrollees gaining experience now, even compared to getting their first experiences in spring practice.

“And to me, what’s really great is having that eye-opening experience now in bowl preparation, so that way they can take advantage of the reps in spring ball,” Wommack said. “Usually half of spring ball, you’re spending guys just being wide-eyed because they don’t know what a practice looks like, they don’t know what the structure looks like. I would anticipate the learning curve will help a little bit more as we go.”

The rest of Alabama’s early enrollees will arrive on campus at some point in January, and will be available for spring practice come April.

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