South Alabama head football coach Kane Wommack is finalizing a deal to become defensive coordinator and linebackers coach at Alabama, according to reports by FootballScoop.com and ESPN’s Chris Low.

Wommack, 36, would be reunited in Tuscaloosa with new Crimson Tide head coach Kalen DeBoer, one of his closest friends in coaching. The two worked together in 2019 at Indiana, when DeBoer was offensive coordinator and Wommack was defensive coordinator, and have maintained a close relationship over the years.

Wommack leaves South Alabama after going 22-16 in three seasons, including 17-9 the last two years. The Jaguars went 10-3 in 2022 to set a program record for victories, then 7-6 with the school’s first-ever bowl victory in 2023.

The son of long-time college football defensive coordinator Dave Wommack (Arkansas, Southern Miss, Ole Miss, Georgia Tech), Kane Wommack played football at Arkansas and Southern Miss in the late 2000s. He has also been defensive coordinator at Eastern Illinois (2014-15) and South Alabama (2016-17) and was a defensive graduate assistant under Hugh Freeze at Ole Miss in 2012-13.

Wommack was defensive coordinator for a 2020 Indiana team that was among the national leaders in takeaways and third-down defense. He was a finalist that season for the Broyles Award as the country’s top assistant coach (Alabama offensive coordinator Steve Sarkisian, now head coach at Texas, won the award).

Under Wommack and defensive coordinator Corey Batoon, South Alabama has put some of the better defenses in the Group of 5 on the field out of its 4-2-5 look the last three years. In 2023, the Jaguars finished 15th in the country in total defense (313.2 yards per game), tied for 26th in scoring defense (21 points per game), 27th in third-down defense (34.1%), 23rd in red zone scoring defense (77.4%) and 18th in stop rate (71.3%) — the percentage of opposing drives that end in punts, turnovers or turnovers on downs.

Wommack makes a little over $800,000 per year at South Alabama in a contract that runs through the 2028 season. It is expected that Alabama would more than double his salary.

Wommack is not the first G5/FCS head coach to become a coordinator or position coach at a Power 5 school in recent years. Sean Lewis left Kent State in 2023 to become offensive coordinator at Colorado (and is now head coach at San Diego State), while North Dakota State’s Matt Entz was recently hired as linebackers coach and assistant head coach for defense at Southern Cal.

As to who might replace Wommack at South Alabama, immediate speculation would turn to offensive coordinator Major Applewhite, a former head coach at Houston who twice worked for Nick Saban at Alabama. Jaguars cornerbacks coach Jay Hopson is also a former head coach at Southern Miss.