What does Kalen DeBoer want Alabama football’s defense to improve at after A-Day?

After the conclusion of the A-Day scrimmage, Alabama head coach Kalen DeBoer highlighted key areas that the Crimson Tide defense can continue to improve in as spring continues.

“We’ve just got to continue to execute when we have pressures and things like that,” DeBoer said. “We’ve got a lot better. That was something we kind of slotted as an area we can improve on from last season. We know the different variations of things we can do with our defense. There’s a lot that we put in up front. I think it’s just continuing to build and grow and see how far those guys can go because we have a pretty good idea with the secondary, what they’re capable of.”

One notable thing that DeBoer said the unit can always work on is tackling, and a few Alabama defenders were exposed for taking poor angles by freshman running back Trae’Shawn Brown. There were also times that players like running back Daniel Hill and wide receiver Rico Scott got physical and bounced off of defenders on certain plays on the first couple of drives. There was a bit of a defensive issue early in the scrimmage with arm-tackling, and the poor angles were exposed by Brown and others today.

“You’re always going to work on tackling,” DeBoer said. “You’re always going to work on pursuit, the effort stuff. It’s gotta happen. It’s got to be a must, and I guess I don’t really feel like we’ve had any issues with that. Our guys are accountable to it. So, now it’s just a matter of execution. Execution with their blitz patterns, execution with their base stuff. We want Coach Wommack to be able to have everything at his fingertips he needs to go be successful. I know they’re taking those steps daily to do that.”         

DeBoer was specifically asked about the Alabama defensive front and what they need to keep improving.

“I thought they did a good job getting pressure in different ways,” DeBoer said. “The key to me is that they’re all working together. I guess that would go back to the previous question of things we can continue to work on. I thought last year, one of the ways we improved our pressuring the quarterback was everyone doing their job and working in unison and not giving lanes for the quarterback to step up. I think once in a while, there’s still lanes for the quarterback to move up. Saw Keelon [Russell] right at the end here do exactly that, get out in some space. He’d have a little pass option. There’s a lot of pressure. Puts a lot of pressure on your defensive backs or back half of it when that happens, so to me, that’s an area we can continue to improve with our defensive front.”

Names like Justin Hill and Devan Thompkins had notably solid performances and had their names called a good bit today, and Hill and Thompkins even received praise from offensive lineman Michael Carroll after A-Day as he told reporters that those were the defenders that stood out to him.