Alabama football got seriously thin at defensive back toward the end of the 2024 season. When that happened, Crimson Tide defensive coordinator Kane Wommack wasn’t especially pleased with the results.

As spring practice began, Wommack turned the experience into one of his two points of emphasis for the defense.

“The first thing that we wanted to make sure we did was continue to build depth that we can trust when it matters most,” Wommack said. “You think about certain games that we had this past season, particularly on the back end, we did not have a lot of depth and it showed up.

“You’re playing Tennessee, you’re playing really well in the second half of that game, five of our top six defensive backs were out and we had not built enough depth there at that position to be able to handle that. Those are things that I think, guys that are efficient in their execution, guys that we can trust to go out there and do their job. I think we’ve addressed those needs in a number of areas, which I’m excited about.”

Alabama saw an exodus at DB following the 2023 season, especially at cornerback. Terrion Arnold and Kool-Aid McKinstry both headed to the NFL, and a host of players, led by Trey Amos headed to the transfer portal.

As spring practice closed, Wommack said the Crimson Tide is much closer to where it needed to be in the backfield last year.

“Quite honestly, it’s what I expected when I came here to Alabama––that we would have great depth,” Wommack said. “You’re always going to have years where you have to kind of rebuild some of that depth. You’ve found yourself in a position of guys that left for the draft and guys in the transfer portal and the transition from coach Saban to coach DeBoer to where we just didn’t have the depth probably that we needed to be consistent on the back end throughout the year. And even that, I think our guys did a tremendous job. But now you feel like you have some bodies that you can work with.”

Wommack said that he wanted the defense as a whole to grow more disciplined as spring progressed. He said the unit did well to limit its penalties throughout its spring scrimmages.

He said his other point of emphasis involved getting quarterbacks onto the ground.

“We wanted to create more negative plays,” Wommack said. “When you look at some of our measurables and statistics and all those things last season, there’s a lot of great numbers to point towards, but one thing we wanted to focus on was creating negative plays and getting to the quarterback in the backfield. T

“hat’s something that schematically we can get better at, point of emphasis we can get better at it, fundamentally we can get better at it. A lot of it is just doing your job. A lot of times when you create negative plays and you affect the quarterback in the passing game it doesn’t just mean you win a 1-on-1 battle, but you rush as a unit and you keep the quarterback in the pocket as we show them different coverages on the back end.”

Spring practice ended Saturday. Alabama will open the season Aug. 30 at Florida State.