Will Anderson, one of the premier defensive standouts in college football, said this week it was “easy going into Alabama” and playing for Nick Saban.

The former Crimson Tide linebacker, who is expecting to hear his name called Thursday very early in the first round of the NFL Draft, talked earlier this week about how he adjusted so quickly to the Alabama coach.

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“It was kind of easy going into Alabama just because me and coach Saban, we share the same mindset, the same mentality, and it was easy for me to accept his coaching and to just follow his lead on everything,” Anderson said during an appearance on “The Jim Rome Show” this week. “The high school I come from, it was just like how it was Alabama, so everything we talked about was discipline, commitment, toughness, pride. All those things were easy for me because I was used to it, that’s what I wanted to be at.”

Anderson is the school’s only two-time unanimous All-American, a two-time winner of the Nagurski Trophy and SEC defensive player of the year, and also won the Bednarik Award, Lombardi Award and Lott Trophy this season.

He started on Alabama’s undefeated national championship team as a freshman in 2020 and was named a permanent team captain after both is sophomore and junior seasons.

Anderson’s 34.5 career sacks place him second in the school’s record book behind Derrick Thomas’ 52 over four seasons in the late 1980s.

Earlier in the pre-draft process, he used one word to describe Saban.