Effort and finish. When new Alabama football defensive coordinator Kane Wommack was asked about his expectations for the Crimson Tide during spring football, those two words were the first items he brought up.

As far as how to instill those virtues into the group, Wommack has a tool he learned from his old college head coach, Larry Fedora, at Southern Miss. At the end of each practice, the defense forms an “accountability circle.”

“We hold young men accountable for their effort and their finish,” Wommack said Wednesday. “When they do not meet the standard and expectation, that is in the form of a loaf, we hold them accountable in the next day’s practice for a loaf.”

It’s not an immediate punishment. Coaches watch the practice film, then come out with a number for each player. The loafs can be made up for in the next practice, whether by pass breakup, sack, takeaway, or anything else Wommack deems a “minus-loaf.”

But at the end of the day, the team groups up, and there’s a debt to pay. Though not for the original loafer.

“Loafs at practice are like, you’re not bursting the ball, not showing effort,” Alabama linebacker Deontae Lawson said. “We get in this big circle and call someone up, and you tell them that you let Swarm D down, however many loafs you had, and we have to do up-downs and you just watch us, and then he just keeps going around the circle. That’s pretty tough.”

The accountability circles have followed Wommack around throughout his career. At South Alabama, where he was the head coach before taking the job in Tuscaloosa under Kalen DeBoer, he had the whole team doing them.

Even before that, current UA defensive backs coach Colin Hitschler, who was an assistant for the Jaguars during Wommack’s first stint there, as defensive coordinator in 2016 and 2017, remembers the punishment.

“I know that’s something he’s carried with him everywhere he’s been,” Hitschler said. “It’s just a good way to get guys to play hard, that’s what the Swarm D, first and foremost, is about.”

There’s a lot for the Crimson Tide to do at this point in the offseason. Wommack is installing his “swarm” defense in Tuscaloosa following the retirement of Nick Saban, a totally new system for UA, and there’s not time for loafing.

According to the new DC, the accountability circles are keeping everyone honest.

“When you step up to the middle of a circle of guys, and you say, ‘My name is Kane Wommack and I let Swarm D down five times,’ those guys pay the up-downs for you,” Wommack said. “You have to stand there and watch your teammates pay for the things you didn’t do to meet the standard. There’s real accountability in that, and I think we’ll see significant improvement from day one to day two.”

Alabama continues spring practice on Friday. The Crimson Tide will wrap up spring ball on April 13, with the annual A-Day game at Bryant-Denny Stadium.