Alabama football's problems in 2024 were offensive in nature, regardless of the sour taste the loss to Vanderbilt left in Tide fans' mouths about Kane Wommack's defense.
Another metric used to measure defensive success shows that Alabama had one of the best defenses in college football in 2024, and increases the hype for next season's defense based on all Alabama is returning on that side of the ball.
ESPN published a post on Tuesday ranking college football teams by stop rate. Stop rate measures the percentage of drives a defense gets off the field via a punt, turnover, or turnover on downs.
Wommack's unit finished the 2024 season ranked 8th in stop rate, producing a stop on 72.7% of opponent possessions. That was good for fourth in the SEC, behind Texas, Tennessee, and Ole Miss. Most interestingly, Kirby Smart's Georgia ranked 67th in that metric. If it felt like this past season didn't feature a vintage Georgia and vintage Smart defense, it's because it didn't.
There's also a handy stat featured in that article for points-per-drive given up. Alabama gave up 1.34 points-per-drive in 2024, good to tie Notre Dame for fifth in the country.
Combine that with Alabama finishing 10th in yards-per-play and 9th in points-per-game, it becomes obvious that Wommack's first season as the defensive coordinator was an overwhelming success. It's even more impressive if you look at what he was working with.
Alabama's two-deep was littered with underclassmen and the Crimson Tide never really identified a true difference-maker rushing the passer. Alabama lost two key pieces from this year's team: LB Jihaad Campbell and DB Malachi Moore, but there's plenty of optimism that the Crimson Tide will feature one of the nation's best defenses in 2025.
Alabama returns a ton of experience next season. With guys like LT Overton, Tim Keenan, Deontae Lawson, Justin Jefferson, and Domani Jackson passing on the NFL Draft, Alabama's defense will be deep and experienced in 2025. Continuity on that side of the ball with Wommack back for his second season as DC will only help.
If a difference maker at rushing the passer develops, the Tide might have the best defense in college football. Overton was one of the best in the country at getting in the backfield, but struggled to finish once there. Another year of development for Qua Russaw and Yhonzae Pierre could lead to a big jump for one, if not both, of them in 2025.
It's obvious that Wommack deserves more credit than he has gotten for getting the Crimson Tide to play to an elite level on defense. If Kalen DeBoer and Nick Sheridan can get things figured out on offense with a new quarterback, Alabama should be a contender next season.