The Concept Alabama's Defense Has To Continue to Answer For

"It's a really challenging concept," Kane Wommack said this week. "We got hit on it last year against Vanderbilt, showed up in a couple of different games last year as well. Florida State tried it against us, and we were able to knock it out in that situation. Some of it is there are certain calls that are good, better against the shovel, and some that aren't.

"It's a challenge because when you get teams that run shovel plays on third down, you almost have a decision to make with your defensive ends. Are you just going to play on the line of scrimmage and not try to affect the quarterback? Or are you gonna do certain things to try to create some overlap? One of the plays we had a chance to be able to defend it better than what we did. One of the other plays I thought I made a really tough call for our guys in that situation.

"It's a play, I've told you guys this before, whatever you put on tape you're going to have to answer for, right? That's a play we're going to have to continue to answer for. We work it probably more than we should, so it's disappointing that we gave two of them up. But at the same time, you kind of have to ask what are you willing to live with a little bit? I'm not saying we're going to give up shovels the rest of the season and I'm OK with that. I don't want our fans hearing that. But what I do want people to understand is you have to affect the quarterback and our ability to affect Diego Pavia was what won us the football game. Sometimes, right, you're gonna have those situations where their counterpunch to that was a shovel pass every now and then. We gotta do a better job defending it, but certainly there's going to be times where you make sure you keep the main thing the main thing, which is affecting the quarterback in the passing game."

Alabama's defense has improved throughout the season, as it did in 2024; however, the shovel pass remains a concept that opposing offenses have used successfully to attack Wommack's 4-2-5 "Swarm" defense.

"It can get challenging, you just have one guy who's not reading his keys right, it'll hit, but when you do your job and focus on your keys, you can stop it," Alabama safety Bray Hubbard said. "It's difficult. It's a difficult play, but you've just got to keep working on it, and if you do your job, it'll come right to you."

The Crimson Tide faces multiple athletic quarterbacks and creative offensive coordinators down the stretch. Teams will likely continue to mix in the shovel pass until Alabama shows they can consistently stop it.

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