Kane Wommack 'very pleased' with Alabama's defensive effort against LSU

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — The Alabama defense is playing its best football of the year right now.

The Crimson Tide, coming off a shutout win against Missouri, had another dominant performance against LSU in Death Valley this past weekend. Alabama held LSU to just 13 points on the game, with the Tigers’ lone touchdown coming in the final minute of the game against Alabama’s backup players.

During his Monday press conference, defensive coordinator Kane Wommack assessed his defense’s performance, and went into detail about a number of different areas of their game.

“Very pleased with the effort that our players on defense are playing with right now,” Wommack said. “I think our guys are playing really hard, really physical, and playing with a swarm defense mentality, which we talk about day in and day out. I thought the practice habits showed up on game day. I thought our guys did a really good job on the bye week and getting some extra reps that we needed to get prepared, and then carried that into the week of preparation on game week and then execute at a really high level.”

Every week, Wommack divulges the defense’s keys to the game and whether the Crimson Tide accomplished those keys or not. The first, was stopping the run.

“One of our keys to victory was to stop the run,” Wommack said. “This was certainly a pass-oriented offense, but you want to make sure you make them one-dimensional. Outside of the first run they had, whatever that was, in the first series of the game, outside of that one, I thought we did a really nice job stopping the run. I think they only had like 36 yards rushing in the second half.”

Alabama limited LSU to 104 yards rushing for the game on 24 attempts, and like Wommack said, the majority of that total came in the first half, including a 45-yard run on the Tigers’ first play from scrimmage. After that run, LSU only garnered 59 yards on the ground the rest of the game.

“We were able to affect the quarterback, which was our second key to victory,” Wommack said. “I thought we did a nice job changing pictures, windows, our players moving in and out of showing pressure looks then getting out of pressure looks. We kept changing the pictures on him, and I thought that affected him to where we were able to take the ball away from him, and also, speed up some of his progression in some of their route concepts and their route trees.”

LSU quarterback Garrett Nussmeier didn’t play well at all. He completed 27-of-42 passes for 239 yards, one touchdown, and two interceptions. The yardage total and completion percentages aren’t terrible, but it was clear all night he was affected by the pressure Alabama was able to create defensively.

He looked unsure in his decision making, and threw a number of inaccurate passes due to the pressure he was facing. Nussmeier was the cause of all three of LSU’s turnovers, throwing the two interceptions and fumbling the ball once while getting sacked.

“Three takeaways again. I think we’ve had 13 over the last four games,” Wommack said. “Our guys are doing a really nice job of taking the ball away, and then we were able to get some pressure on the quarterback. We had two sacks, and they had only given up four all season long. We’re moving in the right direction with a lot of things we’re doing fundamentally on defense, and then guys leaning into some of the things schematically as well.”

Alabama was also excellent on third down, an area that was a huge struggle early in the season but has gotten better and better with each passing game. LSU was just 6-for-14 on third down in the game.

“Situationally, we got off the field on third down in some really critical moments,” Wommack said. “We were 8-for-11 on third-and-medium and long. We were 0-for-3 on third-and-short. A couple of them, they got us in sub-package, sub-personnel, and they got to like 4th-and-1 and they were able to convert some of those, some of the short-yardage concepts.”

Lastly, Wommack discussed Alabama’s strong play in the red zone.

LSU threatened on the opening drive after the aforementioned 45-yard run on the first play for the Tigers, setting them up at 1st-and-goal. From there, Alabama was able to hold to a field goal after a third down pass breakup from Jihaad Campbell.

The Crimson Tide had another huge red zone stand on the first LSU drive of the second half, where Nussmeier through an interception at the goal line to Deontae Lawson, keeping the Tigers from being able to make it a one-score game and gain some momentum.

“For us to be 1-of-3 in the red zone, I thought that was really critical,” Wommack said. “We were able to get stops down there. The first drive of the game, we were able to hold them to a field goal. Coming out in the second half, they had a drive right there and we were able to come away with a takeaway in the red zone as well. Didn’t give up a touchdown right there until the very end of the game. From that standpoint, that was good.”

The performance was one of Alabama’s best from a defensive standpoint, and one the team will want to build off of with just a few games left before the postseason.