Kane Wommack on Benefit of Experience, “They Have More Knowledge”

Alabama is returning eight starters from last year's top ten defensive unit, four starters in the secondary, one at linebacker, and three along the defensive line. The Crimson Tide will have the benefit of experience on that side of the football. Behind those starters, Alabama has a couple of veterans in the rotation, including Nikhai Hill-Green at linebacker, Kelby Collins at bandit, Jah-Marien Latham at Wolf, and DaShawn Jones at Husky.

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On Wednesday, Alabama defensive coordinator Kane Wommack highlighted Latham and Jones for the veteran experience they bring to the defense.

"Well, I mean, one, there's a level of just experience you have in the game of football, right? You line up in a formation regardless of what defense is called, and you play with anticipation," Wommack said. "And we take a lot of energy and effort to get these guys to play with great offensive recognition. Defense is inherently reactionary; we want them to play with anticipation.

"And so older guys naturally just have more experience, they have more knowledge, they have more understanding of the game. And on top of it, right, they're in year two of this defense, right? So structurally, they know what the concepts are and how the concepts are applied to the situation. And then when they can play with offensive recognition, now they're making plays on the ball. Z-Bo can do a lot of things for us; he can play multiple positions for us. In fact, we've got him playing, gosh, I mean, three, four positions on the defense, which is really impressive. Day-Day can do multiple things for us as well. He's done a great job at the Husky position and all the different variations that we ask those guys to do. But certainly experience is, it's finite, it's at a premium, you know what I mean? Everybody wants it, and certainly those guys bring that to the table for us."

You can watch Kane Wommack's full press conference here.

Wyatt Fulton is the Tide 100.9 DME and Brand Manager, primarily covering Alabama Crimson Tide football and men's basketball. For more Crimson Tide coverage, follow Wyatt on X (Formerly known as Twitter) at @FultonW_.