Everything Kane Wommack Said Following ULM Win, Previewing Wisconsin

Opening statement:

"I thought this past week, the emphasis that we made with the effort and the physicality that we needed to play, relying back on what we call Bama fundamentals, which is effort and finish, hard-shoulder tackling, playing with violent hands and creating takeaways, we took a step in the right direction. I still think our execution is not good enough. We've got to continue to work and push there.

"We’ve put some things on tape that we're going to have to answer for as the season goes on and continues. We need to stay uncomfortable as a defense. That is my job to make sure that we do that. I think our coaches have coached with a great edge. I think our players are playing with a great edge, from the standpoint of the way that they prepared this past week, and it showed up on Saturday. But good teams improve and you do that by moving and operating with purpose. I think we need to continue to do that.

"Looking forward to a good opponent in Wisconsin, a team that we played last year. They look very different on offense, in terms of some of the things they're doing schematically, some of their personnel is the same. A number of guys are different, including the quarterback position. So, looking forward to squaring off with them on Saturday.

"But we've got to have a great week of preparation, and we need to make sure that we keep the focus on our players' ability to maximize their opportunity on Saturday. It always builds to Saturday, and we need to make sure we have a great week for that."

On the interior defensive line's performance without Jeremiah Beaman and Tim Keenan III:

"I think you're seeing some good things from some younger players in Isaia Faga and London Simmons. Both those guys did a good job. James Smith had a really good game. I think he was a player of the game from an interior defensive line standpoint, did a nice job for us in there as well.

"So I think we've got some guys that are trending in the right direction. But good teams improve, and those guys need to continue to do that as we go, especially in the level of consistent execution."

On what is preventing from ending quarterback pressures with a sack:

"Honestly, you've got to be able to have guys that can finish, and right now we're not doing that. We're not doing that well enough. I think angles is a huge piece of that. I think closing space on a quarterback is a huge indicator, right, of having success. But right now we're letting quarterbacks — we can flush them out of the pocket, but we're not doing nearly a good enough job of getting the quarterback on the ground.

"We had 12 TFLs in the game the other day with no sacks. I don't know if that's ever happened, at least in my experience. We got to do a better job. I've got to find a better way to get the quarterback on the ground, at least in terms of what we're doing schematically. I need to help our guys out in that regard."

On whether he saw an increased response to big plays from defensive players:

"I thought our players met the standard of effort, physicality, passion that we've established here defensively and you have to play the game with defensively, and that's the standard. That's the expectation.

I thought we got them — they used as a point of emphasis, it was the thing that we did not show up well enough in the first game. Our guys did a good job of emphasizing that and it showed up. But that's who we are as a defense, that's who we should be. The standard is the standard, and it was met this week when it was not in Week 1."

On what he saw from the inside linebackers, specifically QB Reese:

“Yeah, QB was in on two takeaways defensively, which was great. We've made an emphasis of not just creating takeaways, but trying to score. We had an opportunity to do that, but fell a little bit short there. So I think a tight end chased him down, so we kind of gave him a hard time on that one.

“But I think one of the big emphases in the offseason is creating force fumbles and punching out the ball and QB did a really nice job of that. That last takeaway that we got, he did a nice job of coming in there and punching the ball out. Those are things that we chart and practice every day.

“He's a guy that continues to do those things in practice and then it showed up on game day. So you always want to be able to reinforce your messages, right? So when you can show guys, ‘Hey, he did this in practice,’ and then all of a sudden he showed up and he got production on game day. That's a good message.”

On how he views Dre Kirkpatrick Jr.’s fit at safety opposed to HUSKY and if there is a coaching point for Kirkpatrick's targeting hit:

“I think Dre did some good things at the safety position the other night. He's been doing that all spring. He's been doing that all fall camp. You know, he plays the game with a lot of effort and energy and some good things happen from that. He created one of our takeaways in the game, just flying around and hitting people.

“Obviously, when you're moving towards a ball carrier in the manner that he was in the targeting call, you just can't leave your feet and put yourself in a position to eject with your helmet being the first part of your body that's going to make contact with the ball carrier.

“And so those are the things we talked to our guys about—taking the extra step, not leaving your feet. That's bad football, in general. But taking that extra step to make sure that we don't launch, that we're moving through the tackle instead of to the tackle. That's a point of emphasis that we made with him and hopefully we get that cleaned up.”