Alabama Crimson Tide Football is three sleeps from its opener against East Carolina, and the message out of Tuscaloosa is that the parts that stalled late last season should look different on Saturday. The coaches say the run game will be better, the defense is already in a strong place, and EJ Crowell is expected to be ready to play after an injury limited him late in preseason camp.
That matters because Alabama finished the 2025 season with only 48 rushing yards in its final three games, a stretch that made the ground game the loudest question on the roster heading into this week. Crowell, Daniel Hill, Kevin Riley and Trae’Shawn Brown give Alabama options in the backfield, but the real test is whether a mostly new offensive line can make those options matter right away.
DeBoer said the line has to be physical and has to function as a unit, with every player exactly on the same page and the footwork synced with the man next to him. In his view, that is what turns repeated practice into production on the field. Alabama has only one starter back from last year on the line, so the improvement the coaches are talking about depends less on one standout block than on five players moving and reacting together at the same speed.
The defense comes into the opener with a different kind of pressure. Wommack said Alabama has a lot of talent and is in a better place in roster quality than it was in maybe the first two years, but he also said the cohesion is only now starting to reach a higher level. That lines up with the way the unit has been treated this week: not as a question mark, but as a group expected to be solid enough that it has not drawn much attention.
There is still a catch. Alabama is facing a new offensive coordinator who is known for playing fast and spraying the ball around, which means the defense will be tested before the season has much time to settle into a rhythm. If the line comes together quickly, the run game can keep Alabama from reliving the January stretch that exposed it. If it does not, Saturday will tell the same old story faster than the coaches want.
