Kane Wommack assesses Alabama's defensive performance vs. Tennessee

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — The Alabama defense has been under a lot of scrutiny this season, particularly after the loss to Vanderbilt a few weeks ago where the Commodores put up 40 points.

Since then, the defense has shown steady improvement, however the performance wasn’t quite enough to walk out of Knoxville with a win as the Crimson Tide dropped its second game of the season against Tennessee on Saturday.

During his Monday morning press conference, defensive coordinator Kane Wommack gave his thoughts on the defense’s performance in the loss.

“Disappointing to come away with a loss with a group of guys that played very hard, very physical in the game. Left it all out there on the field. We asked a lot of our experienced players, asked a lot of some young players that had to step up in some big moments and I thought our players played extremely hard,” Wommack said. “So it’s always challenging. The game does not always reward you for your effort, and our guys certainly recognize the reward and consequence of wins and losses and how hard you have to be able to continue to work through adversity. I thought they had a really good mentality, took great ownership, us as coaches, them as players, together as a football team in terms of identifying the things that we’ve got to continue to build in consistency so that we can have success in the end and find a way to win.”

Alabama pitched a shutout in the first half, but in the second half, allowed all 24 points the Vols scored in the game. Tennessee amassed 408 yards in the game, over half of which came on the ground.

The ground game spearheaded Tennessee’s second half success. Led by star running back Dylan Sampson, The Vols went from just 44 first half rushing yards to 170 in the second half, and when that number started increasing, so did the points on Tennessee’s side of the scoreboard.

“I thought we actually stopped the run well outside of three explosive plays. So you look up, obviously the yardage is not what we want. But you look at how they got those yards, it wasn’t seven, eight yards a carry, it was three explosive plays given up. One of them, obviously being a quarterback scramble. One of them, we were able to create a takeaway on and then a misfit and miss leverage to where we let a guy outside and they were able to hit a 35 yard chunk on us,” Wommack said. “So those are things that have to continue to work to get cleaned up. I think that’s some of the consistency and execution that we have to continue to provide and build that we’re not there yet, and those explosives, obviously are costly for us. Discipline to do your job over and over again is the key, especially against a team like that that can create explosive plays.”

One thing the defense was able to do very well was force takeaways. Alabama forced three in the game, one being a fumble forced by Malachi Moore, and two being interceptions, one from Moore and one from Jaylen Mbakwe.

Takeaways fall into a category of what Wommack calls ‘game-changers,’ which Alabama had 11 this past week. The others included three sacks, three 3-and-outs, and two fourth down stops that came in the form of missed field goals.

While that seems like a good number, Wommack said his target number of game-changers for the week was 12.

“I thought there were a lot of great things to point to but ultimately, you look at it, our goal of the week was 12 game changers. We got 11,” Wommack said. “I kind of felt like that was the game we ultimately needed one more stop, when you needed one more play from a defensive perspective in order to win the game and we came up short. Those are hard things to deal with as a team but our players, I think, are ready to go to work and to respond. And some young players that have stepped up last week and are going to be asked to step up moving forward as well.”

But now coming off another loss, the defense has to refocus to get ready for a matchup with No. 21 Missouri back at home this week. Wommack believes any and all focus should be on Missouri itself, and not anything else that could serve as a distraction.

“I think they’re all ready for the challenge. I talked to the players yesterday, all that should be on our minds is what do we have to do to beat Missouri on Saturday,” Wommack said. “And anything outside of that is a distraction and does not keep focus on the main thing. Ultimately during adverse times that’s what you have to do — keep the main thing the main thing, stay focused on the task at hand. I think our guys are doing a really good job in that. “