Kane Wommack’s Swarm Defense attacking the football

Under new defensive coordinator Kane Wommack, Alabama’s defense has looked the part early on in the 2024 season. Wommack’s 4-2-5 “Swarm” approach is predicated on pressuring the quarterback and generating turnovers, and the Tide has done a great job of that thus far. 

Safety Keon Sabb picked off two passes in the first quarter of the season opener against Western Kentucky, immediately demonstrating Bama’s emphasis on takeaways and earning him SEC Defensive Player of the Week. Since then, Sabb and a few of his teammates have narrowly missed out on additional interception opportunities. 

What has excited me even more is the way the Alabama defense has aggressively attacked ball-carriers and passers in the pocket. 

The Crimson Tide forced four fumbles in its most recent game against Wisconsin, converting two of them into turnovers. On the first, safety Malachi Moore made a textbook open field tackle, putting his hat right on the ball to pop it out. True freshman cornerback Zabien Brown capitalized on the recovery to make the first big play of his career.

Later, linebacker Deontae Lawson ripped the ball out of the hands of a Badger running back as the rest of the defense held him up. Redshirt senior Que Robinson got on top of that ball for Alabama's second turnover of the afternoon. 

Robinson has been excellent in his own right as a pass rush specialist. Despite playing limited snaps, he leads the team with 3.0 sacks. Robinson nearly had a strip sack on the first defensive series of the season when he hit WKU quarterback TJ Finley and momentarily jarred the ball loose. This week, he made a heads-up play to strip Wisconsin QB Braedyn Locke, realizing he couldn’t get all the way to Locke and targeting the ball instead for a forced fumble. 

That was Locke’s second fumble of the game caused by an Alabama pass rusher. The first came when he tried to extend a play and got blasted by junior Bandit LT Overton in the first quarter. Overton just missed causing a turnover, but delivered the hit of the game and the play that shifted the momentum to Alabama’s side. 

This Crimson Tide defense isn’t perfect. It has plenty to work on, including finishing tackles and staying attached in man coverage. However, if Wommack’s unit can play the opportunistic football it has shown so far, it will cover a multitude of sins and make this one of the better defenses in college football.