It’s no easy job to replace Nick Saban, and Kane Wommack knows that almost as well as Kalen DeBoer. Now heading into his second year running the Alabama defense, with plenty of returning talent in Tuscaloosa, Wommack has a chance to return the Alabama defense to its status as one of the most feared units in the country.
Continuity is one of the biggest reasons to expect a step forward from that group, and that’s especially true at linebacker, where, despite the loss of last season’s leading tackler Jihaad Campbell to the first round of the NFL Draft, the Tide return two redshirt seniors to lead the group: Deontae Lawson and Justin Jefferson.
With so much experience, there won’t be many reps for the true freshmen from the 2025 recruiting class, and according to Wommack’s report from fall camp on Wednesday, that’s a good thing.
“Swimming, struggling. I mean, in a good way. I mean, if you're going to do this at a high level from a linebacker standpoint, you have to embrace the hard times, right?” Wommack said. “There's just so much we ask those guys to do in terms of running the defense. And so they have to kind of go and press through these things, and it's going to be two steps forward, one step back, and then it's going to be one step forward and two steps back for a little while.”
Duke Johnson II, Luke Metz, and Abduall Sanders Jr. are a long way from seeing the field for the Tide
As Wommack explained, off-ball linebacker is one of the most difficult positions to learn on defense, and one of the most frequently attacked by opposing offenses. Even with Campbell, Lawson, and Jefferson last season, Vanderbilt torched Wommack’s linebackers in its upset win, putting them in constant conflict by using play-action and leveraging Diego Pavia’s mobility.
That group played better as the season went on, and with Lawson, Jefferson, and a major offseason addition, it could be one of the strongest linebacking corps in the country.
The addition is Nikhai Hill-Green from Colorado, who will battle for a starting role in his final season of eligibility. Lawson spent the offseason rehabbing from the season-ending knee injury he suffered against Oklahoma last November, so Alabama needed to bring in another potential starter at the spot, but Lawson has returned to health quickly and should be ready for Week 1, giving the Tide exceptional depth.
Regardless of their developmental trajectory, there wouldn’t have been many snaps for Duke Johnson II, Luke Metz, and Abduall Saunders Jr. this season, but a tough start to camp is a sobering reminder of how difficult the transition is from high school to college.
However, Wommack still has high hopes for that group, especially Johnson, the lone composite four-star that the Tide brought in at the position.
“He's very inexperienced as a linebacker. So there's a transition that that takes. We had a guy at Indiana, Cam Jones, who’s playing for the Chiefs right now. Cam came in, didn't really have any experience as a linebacker, and that was a process. And then he turned himself into an all-conference player and then got drafted and so on and so forth, right?”
The flip side of Alabama’s experience is that Lawson, Jefferson, and Hill-Green are all in their final season of eligibility, so Wommack will need his inexperienced freshmen to turn the corner quickly and be ready for the 2026 season.