Alabama football’s offense got off to a hot start in the first scrimmage of preseason camp on Saturday. The beginning of the practice didn’t especially thrill defensive coordinator Kane Wommack.

“I thought early on the offense did a really good job,” Wommack said. “We’ve challenged our guys to be able to respond early in games. That’s hard for a defense because when you think about it an offense is working all week long, right? They’ve got a game plan.”

In a perfect world, at least for the Crimson Tide’s new coordinator, the defense would make stops immediately. He pointed out that offenses plan out their first plays, and stopping them can plant seeds of doubt about the game plan in general.

“Our offense did a really good job in that,” Wommack said. “And I thought our defense responded immediately after.”

The coordinator had one other concern about the Crimson Tide after the scrimmage.

“I thought our tackling was just okay,” Wommack said. “We’re running to the ball probably as good as I’ve seen since we’ve been here, but I think overall from a tackling standpoint, those are things that you got to get better at from scrimmage one to scrimmage two.”

Alabama is set to hold its second scrimmage Saturday morning. The Tide will have one more after that, before opening the 2024 season.

After the first scrimmage, new head coach Kalen DeBoer made a similar point to Wommack.

“Good give-and-take,” DeBoer said Saturday. “Got some explosive plays, some tackles for loss. Obviously from my standpoint, you want the defense to do better on the explosive plays and not give those up. And then you’re proud of the offense and vice versa with the tackles for loss and sacks and things like that.”

Alabama will play Western Kentucky to start the 2024 season on Aug. 31 at Bryant-Denny Stadium.