Alabama's Defensive Front Using Performance Against Georgia as Confidence Booster for Tennessee
TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — Physicality.
It's what University of Alabama coach Nick Saban has built his defense, and namely his defensive lines, on since his tenure started in Tuscaloosa 14 seasons ago.
Last weekend, the Crimson Tide's defensive line was missing its most experienced player in LaBryan Ray, who was out due to an elbow sprain suffered in practice, and it still was able to find its rhythm in the second half against Georgia in a 41-24 victory.
As a whole, the unit held the Bulldogs to 54 rushing yards in the second half, two sacks, four batted passes, and four quarterback hurries. It really was the best showing of the season so far from Alabama at that position.
Crimson Tide sophomore nose tackle DJ Dale spoke with the media on Tuesday via Zoom to assess where the group is in terms of controlling the line of scrimmage.
"I feel like we’ve been getting better each week," Dale said. "For the most part, I feel like we do have some more room to improve. Overall, we’ve been getting better. Coach [Nick Saban] been talking about that and we knew as a group we needed to be a more physical front and more dominant up front."
The Birmingham native explained how exactly the group can dominate at the point of attack more moving forward.
"A lot of it is your technique and just making sure you stay in your right gap," Dale said. "But the other part is your mentality and having the confidence within yourself that you're going to control the line of scrimmage and not get knocked off the ball."
While one of the batted passes against Georgia, forced by redshirt-sophomore defensive lineman Christian Barmore, was intercepted by Justin Eboigbe, Dale said that was a major emphasis throughout practice.
"The whole week Coach [Saban] was on about getting your hands up when the quarterback is about to throw the ball," Dale said. "We need we was playing against a shorter quarterback, so that whole week, we was practicing just getting our hands up.
"Those batted passes were big. You never know what could've happened if we didn't bat the balls down. So that gave us a lot of momentum going into the game and just the longer the game went on. The batted passes really helped."
Two freshmen defensive linemen, Jamil Burroughs and Tim Smith, made their debuts against the Bulldogs and Dale likes what he is seeing from his teammates in the trenches.
"They played really well," Dale said. "Those are two guys who came in with a work ethic and they just worked hard and Coach [Saban] actually told them to day in and day out, keeping doing what you’re going to do and it’s gonna come a time during the season where you two guys are gonna have to step up, and that’s what they did."
Shutting down the Bulldogs offense in the second half last Saturday and creating three turnovers is something that Dale and junior cornerback Patrick Surtain II are hoping to use that performance as a launching pad for the rest of the season, as the year hits its halfway point this weekend versus Tennessee.
“Most definitely," Surtain said. "We can learn from this week, learn from our mistakes and learn from the positives as well. Build it on to the next week and the weeks after and I believe we’ll get more comfortable as a defense as we keep on producing turnovers.”
Alabama is looking for win No. 14 in a row against the Volunteers this weekend, and while Dale says he can't remember the last time Alabama was defeated by them, he isn't focused on that.
"I'm not sure when the last time was, but I know it's real big for the state of Alabama," Dale said. "I look at it as them just being the next opponent, just taking it week by week and going into this week 0-0 and hopefully after the game we're 1-0."
