Kane Wommack details meetings with Nick Saban about Alabama's defense
New Alabama defensive coordinator Kane Wommack had his second in-person meeting with former Crimson Tide head coach Nick Saban on Wednesday before the former joined The Next Round set at the Mal M. Moore Athletic Facility. Wommack was “promptly early.”
“I told my wife it was like cramming for a final the night before, making sure my cut-ups and everything was ready to go for that meeting,” Wommack said. “But Coach has been awesome. He’s been helpful. He’s honest, gives me his real thoughts. I ask him real questions.
“I wanna know this team. I wanna know what he envisioned, what he built from a defensive perspective, obviously, and how to best kind of take what was done the last 17 years and how they’ve evolved over 17 years to the point they are now and how we best need to make that transition from a defensive scheme.”
Wommack is known for his “Swarm D” and 4-2-5 scheme and said there are similarities in what Alabama has done on the defensive side of the ball for the last 17 seasons under Saban.
“There’s a ton of carryover in what we do and what Coach Saban has done,” Wommack said. “My dad was a longtime defensive coordinator in the SEC. Dave Wommack had great defenses, was kind of one of the originators of the 4-2-5 defense. But we are a little bit more of a 3-4 nickel defense. That’s really what Coach Saban has been the last few years, where they’re able to move in and out of four down and 3-4.
“So there’s a lot of carryover, but I wanna make sure that I kind of minimize some of the things that our players are gonna have to learn so that I can understand their verbiage, as well.”
The ex-South Alabama head coach said he will be calling defensive plays from the sideline this fall. His approach led to one of the questions he asked Saban about teams adjusting.
“How different were teams the four games prior to playing Alabama to what they actually they came in?” Wommack said. “Sometimes vastly different because of our personnel and the things that we do. That’s a credit to Coach and the way they did things here and the personnel that we have.
“But just being aware of that and making sure that the players know, ‘Hey, Coach. They came out in a totally different thing than what we thought.’ Those are the communications that you can have on the sideline.”
Wommack has been a head coach in Mobile, Ala., for the last three seasons, where he did not call plays for the Jaguars. His new role as defensive coordinator at Alabama will place him back behind a play sheet for the first time since 2020 when he was at Indiana and worked with the Tide’s offensive coordinator Nick Sheridan – and Kalen DeBoer before that.
Going back to calling plays is exciting for Wommack.
“I was thrilled that we’re still playing with 11 people out there on the field, so that’s part pretty good,” Wommack joked. “I loved being a defensive coordinator. I mean, I loved my time as a head coach at South Alabama. … But I missed being a defensive coordinator. I missed having a room that guys that you’re connected to and calling plays on game day was phenomenal. I am really excited about that portion of doing things.
“And it’s not like I was that far removed. I was in the game plan room. Coach Saban and I – not to make comparisons to myself with Coach Saban, right – but just from an operational standpoint, the way he did things here and listening to him and how he did it and the way I did things at South Alabama were very similar. Heavily involved in our defense, heavily involved in special teams, constant meetings with our offense just to stay aware of what they were doing.
“But the game constantly changes in college football. There’s formational things, run game progression, reads in the passing game, all these things that you’ve got to stay on top of. If you remove yourself three years entirely and just say, ‘Hey, I’m a head coach and I’m just gonna go recruit and hobnob with big wigs, the game is gonna pass you by.’ So, fortunately, those are the things that we’ve stayed on top of.”
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