Kane Wommack didn’t waste any time after Alabama’s opener pretending the Crimson Tide had nothing to clean up. The defense held East Carolina to one touchdown, but the Alabama coordinator made it clear Monday that the film still showed a problem he wants gone fast: communication.
The breakdown came on a busted coverage zone assignment, the kind of mistake that can flip a drive in a hurry. Pirates quarterback Mitch Griffis hit Tyler Johnson for 68 yards, and that set up a passing touchdown from Griffis to Jeremiah Melvin at the goal line. Wommack took the blame for the sequence, pointing to the call and the way the defense handled the tempo.
“We did have a miscommunication piece on the opposite side of the ball when we’re in that coverage,” Wommack said to reporters Monday. “The ball was in the middle of the field, and they were going tempo.
They got to an empty play. I could have put us in a better situation there.
I could have put us probably in a better call to start with.
"Ideally, when they’re running four verticals down the field, you want to get a reroute on that number two receiver. We did not get a reroute, so now all of a sudden, he’s running down the seam quickly.
There was a communication that should have been made on the back end with our middle third player, who, when they come out in that formation, we say Hey, there’s the threat of being able to run four verticals here, and that did not happen. So, we kind of lost the middle presence of the defense in that regard.
Both Bray (Hubbard) and Zabien (Brown), between the two of them, we got to do a better job of holding off that seam in the hook drop and then creating more overlap in the defense as well. A number of things broke down, including that I could have put them in a better situation there.”
That kind of accountability mattered to Wommack, but it also came with a warning. Alabama can’t just file the mistake away and move on. The Tide open SEC play on the road against Kentucky this Saturday, and whatever showed up on tape against East Carolina is now fair game for the next opponent.
“It’s something that we will make sure we address because whatever you put on tape, you’re going to see it again,” Wommack said.
The concern for Alabama is that communication has been a familiar issue for the defense in recent years. The secondary has the talent.
It has the experience. What it can’t afford is losing its shape when offenses speed up and force the back end to sort everything out in real time.
That challenge gets a quick test against Kentucky and first-year starter Kenny Mincey. In the Wildcats’ 45 to 13 win over Youngstown State, Mincey completed 18 of 27 passes for four touchdowns and 301 yards.
So the question for Alabama isn’t whether the pieces are there. It’s whether the secondary can clean up the chatter, tighten the coverage, and look sharper when the game gets faster and the margin for error shrinks.
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