I went down a rabbit hole earlier on new Alabama Defensive Coordinator Kane Wommack earlier. I am familiar with him as the Head Coach at South Alabama, but it certainly wasn’t the biggest name that Alabama fans are used to as their teams coordinators. So I started researching. Here my (relatively quick) deep dive on Kane Wommack.

Early Career

Wommack was a tight end/fullback at Arkansas and Southern Miss, but we are more worried about his coaching credibility. Wommack has been coaching in College Football his entire career starting in 2010. His first stop was at UT Martin where he worked with the quarter backs, then he spent 3 years as a Grad Assistant. First for a year at Jacksonville State and then 2 years Ole Miss. I spent little time looking at these stops because I’m not super worried about Grad Assistant years.

All I will say about this stretch is that his only SEC coaching is his time at Ole Miss in the 2012 and 2013 seasons under Hugh Freeze. Not a coach to brag about learning under if you are asking me. And SEC experience as a Grad Assistant doesn’t really count. His father, Dave, was the Defensive Coordinator at Ole Miss during this time. Dave was a defensive coach in college football from 1979-2016, there’s got to be a lot of experience gained there.

Eastern Illinois

Eastern Illinois hired Wommack as Defensive Coordinator in 2014. He held that position for the 2014 and 2015 seasons. I’m not the best researcher of all time, but it was pretty hard to find detailed defensive stats for the 2014 and 2015 Eastern Illinois Panthers. The Best I can give you is that in 2014 their defense gave up 25.5 points per game and in 2015 26.5 in 2015. But if you go back to the season before Wommack arrived as DC the numbers were basically the same. So not a whole lot to go off of here.

South Alabama

In 2016 Wommack went to South Alabama as the Defensive Coordinator/Linebackers Coach. He was in this position for the 2016 and 2017 seasons. The USA defense went 6-7 in 2016 and the defense allowed 27 ppg. 2017 was a worse record for the team, finishing 4-8, but the defense was about the same giving up 26.5 ppg. Maybe not that impressive, until you look at the season before Wommack arrived. In 2015 USA allowed 55 ppg. So Wommack obviously made huge improvements to the defense during his time there. They also beat Mississippi State in Wommacks first game at USA. Sure it’s not a Mississippi State, but an SEC win is an SEC win

Indiana

Now on to Indiana. Wommack left USA to coach the linebackers at Indiana in 2018. Then for the 2019 season he was named the Defensive Coordinator where he would also remain for the 2020 season. This is where our connection to new Alabama head coach Kalen Deboer comes in. Deboer was the Offensive Coordinator during the 2019 season. This pairing seemed to work well together. The team won 8 games for the first time since 1993 and improved on back to back 5-7 seasons. In 2019 the defense ranked 45th in the country per Sports Reference. They allowed 213 passing yards a game, which was better than several teams in the top 25, and 138 rushing yards per game. This was a massive improvement on the previous years 81 ranking, 240 passing yards, and 183 rushing yards per game.

The following season was even better. The Indiana defense was ranked 20th in the country and finished the year with a 6-2 record. This was of course the covid shortened season, but you can’t ignore that both years Wommack was the DC the defense made huge improvements. There’s no surprise that he got his first Head Coaching opportunity after this season.

South Alabama (HC)

From 2021-2023 Wommack was the Head Coach at South Alabama. During his time the Jags had a 22-16 record. The first year was a little underwhelming, finishing with a 5-7 record. Although that was a 1 win improvement on the previous year. The following year, 2022, was a big year for USA. The team finished 10-3, the first 10 win season for South Alabama since being in the FBS. Unfortunately for USA, they didn’t get to compete for the Sun Belt Championship due tying their division with Troy, who finished with a better overall record. This past season the team regressed back to a 7-6 record. That set up his move to Alabama to be the new Defensive Coordinator.

Alabama

And now he will be going back to Defensive Coordinator at Alabama under Kalen Deboer. Wommack has always run a 4-2-5 defensive scheme, which would show why his past teams have looked good defending the pass and the rushing numbers are a little high. My take on all of this? I’m excited. He’s only 36 years old and has shown that he can put together a good defense at schools that don’t draw the talent that Alabama will have. It would certainly help if Caleb Downs had not transferred out, but this team will still have talent.

He has worked along side the Head Coach in the past and clearly made an impression. I think Deboer is a very good coach and if he believes in Kane Wommack, I believe in Kane Wommack. I would assume that some one as young as he is will be using this job to gain experience at a big time program and be looking to get back into head coaching at a bigger school. What is the best way to do that? Have a great defense at Alabama. This seems like a good fit. With SEC caliber talent I am very interested to see what this new Alabama defense will look like this season. Vegas still thinks this team will be good, I wrote about what the National Championship odds say about it here. And if you are feeling generous go give me a follow on Twitter/X here for more.