Alabama Football: Mack Wilson must become the next great Tide LB

Hard-hitting Alabama football middle linebacker, Mack Wilson looks to take the next step in cementing himself among the greats of the Nick Saban era.

We should’ve known after Alabama football middle linebacker Mack Wilson changed his Twitter handle to “Maserati Mack”.

This was an obvious homage to his former teammate Reuben Foster who had changed his own Twitter handle prior to the 2016 season to “Ferrari Foster”.

Honestly, we probably should’ve known when former Texas A&M receiver Speedy Noil had to peel himself off the field after then-freshman Wilson ran into him with the force of a runaway freight train on a kick off.

All of us remember the 2014 November evening in Baton Rouge when Foster did much the same to LSU’s Leonard Fournette.

Saban’s Alphas

Foster was one of those linebackers Saban loves to call an “alpha.” The kind of defender who not only let his play do the talking, but also held everyone else on the team accountable.

As a first-time starter coming into the season, Wilson isn’t necessarily to that point. He was, however, given Nick Saban’s stamp of approval at SEC Media Days this year for being that guy in 2018.

Saban said: “First of all, Mack is going to be the signal caller.”

This is everything you need to glean about Wilson’s importance on a very young 2018 defense.

In 2017, Wilson tallied 40 tackles as primarily a situational player. He was used mostly in the Alabama football nickel and dime packages as a sort of rover in the middle of the field. This was obviously successful given his team-leading 4 interceptions last season, including a pick-six.

Let that sink in for a second. A linebacker that shared the field with Minkah Fitzpatrick and Ronnie Harrison led 2017 Alabama football in interceptions.

After the injury bug bit Shaun Dion Hamilton and Dylan Moses, Wilson became a starter for the first time in his career during the College Football Playoff. Against Clemson and Georgia alone he recorded nearly 50% of his output from last season, including a team-leading 12 tackles in the championship.

Mack is a Baller

Wilson can ball out. We’ve seen the hits, the instinctive ability to find exactly where the football is and make sure the person carrying it doesn’t go far.

What we haven’t seen to this point is exactly what Saban was talking about at Media Days: the leader.

He hasn’t had to call the signals because he’s had the aforementioned Hamilton and Rashaan Evans to allow him to be the heat-seeking missile that he is.

While Saban certainly doesn’t want Wilson to lose the edge that makes him such an effective player, being the signal caller for a defense as complex as Saban’s means being calculated and measured with your play.

What Wilson needs to be is exactly what Hamilton, Foster, Reggie Ragland, CJ Mosley, Dont’a Hightower and Rolando McClain all were their respective years with Alabama football: a damn good leader.

This means being the guy who can make the plays if necessary but doesn’t overreach when there are 10 other players around him. What any middle linebacker tasked with executing Nick Saban’s defense should aspire to be is a healthy balance between McClain and Mosley.

Must learn to be an Alabama football Field General

McClain was a true field general who, like Wilson, was told by Saban to be a better leader going into his junior season, while Mosley was the prototype for the modern-day Saban “Mike” ‘backer: smaller, faster and intelligent.

What Wilson has is arguably more natural talent than either of these gentlemen, but lacks experience in knowing not only where he needs to be on the field, but the other athletes, as well.

This is the one thing that happens to be a learned trait and is so very important to being a leader on any Saban-coached team. If you can’t put in the work, then the rest of it doesn’t mean a damn thing.

Wilson’s had an entire offseason to contemplate all of this and even though he most likely knew he was going to be the signal caller in 2018, Saban certainly put him on blast by telling the rest of the college football world about it.

Mack Wilson will most likely be the team’s leading tackler this upcoming season. Whether those tackles combine with effective leadership, only time will tell.