Trailing by 17 in a College Football Playoff road game, Alabama could have unraveled. Instead, the Crimson Tide responded with force, ripping off a 34–7 run and walking out of Norman with a 34–24 win. For Alabama defensive coordinator Kane Wommack, the comeback was not improvisation. It was identity.
“When you’re down 17–0, the way that you have to protect your sideline, the energy, that’s what we’re trying to build this team on,” Wommack said. “All our kids do is they fight. They punch, and they just keep punching.”
Oklahoma’s fast start did not surprise him. “They had a really good plan early on coming into this game,” Wommack said. “They changed tendency at pretty much every first, second, third down.” The quarterback, he added, “played out of his mind in the first half.”
Alabama’s response was calm adjustment. “Just finding ways to settle in, see what their pictures are, see what their game plan is, and then being ready to adjust whichever way we needed to,” Wommack said.
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The game turned on a Zabien Brown pick six, a moment Wommack described simply. “When you can not only flip the field but then score in that situation, really awesome.” The design mattered. “We showed a little bit of zero pressure, then baited to a drop-eight cover two, and Zabien made a hell of a play.”
Pressure followed. “We didn’t affect him early enough from a pass rush standpoint,” Wommack said. “Then we started affecting him, and it drastically changed the outcome of the game.”
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In the second half, Alabama leaned into man coverage. “Our DBs were begging for it,” he said. “That’s what you want. You want kids that want the ball in their court.”
For Wommack, the why is culture. “You don’t win those games without great culture,” he said. “That wasn’t who we were a year ago. We learned how to fight.”
And the reminder, even after advancing, was blunt. “This is not the end for us.”
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