Coming into this season, the Tide had sported one of the top passing defenses in the country in 2025 and returned their entire secondary – so it stood to reason that expectations were sky high for this defense. And the thing with expectations is that, despite the Alabama defense putting up decent enough final results (21 points per game with an impressive 19 takeaways and 35 total points on defensive scores), they have overall felt like they’ve underwhelmed.
So, today’s exercise on grading each of
the position groups won’t be a letter grade or anything like that. Instead, we’re just looking at how the units have stacked up compared to how we felt about them just before the season started.
Defensive Line
This group has been a mixed bag for me. I was cautiously optimistic we’d see improvement with James Smith moving on, and for the most part the additions of Devan Thompkins and Terrance Green have been definitive upgrades over what Alabama was trotting out a year ago. Now, things have dropped off since Green has been injured, but even then it’s hard to say they haven’t lived up to expectations.
On the other hand, despite a more consistent rushing defense, the pass rush has felt almost nonexistant. Yhonzae Pierre hasn’t had the impact we had hoped, and no other edge rushers have really stepped up. Of course, losing both Justin Hill and Desmond Umeozulu early in the season really knocked them back a peg. Fatutoa Henry finally showed up for the first time last week, so there’s some optimism there.
Overall, I’d say the group has met my expectations, but not by much. They’ve been better against the rush, but not pass rushed as well as I was hoping – but the injury caveat is a big one.
Linebackers
Talk about exceeding expectations. I was actually not very high on Caleb Woodson when Alabama signed him as a guy who was a converted safety. I was worried he just wouldn’t be physical enough. Well it turns out that Woodson is built like a tree trunk and has been consistently excellent all season. Meanwhile, 2nd year player Luke Metz seemed to come out of nowhere and has been one of the most high-energy, high-impact players on the team. Metz is still having some mistakes, but he’s looked like a budding star. This duo has been one of the best parts of Alabama’s 2026 squad and has far exceeded my expectations.
Cornerbacks
Zabien Brown has been awesome, and has met all expectations as arguably the best player on Alabama’s roster. On the other hand, the rest of the group has been, to put it frankly, a disaster. Dijon Lee was great in 2025, and has somehow regressed into a player that gives up multiple deep balls and multiple penalties every game. Carmelo O’Neal got burned multiple times early in the season, and now that he’s playing again with Zabien Brown hurt, the Alabama defense is playing with the entire secondary backed off so far to make sure he and Lee don’t get beat over the top, and it’s wrecking the defensive scheme.
Past that, the other young corners have barely gotten into the game, though we finally did see some Chuck McDonald last week.
I don’t know how Alabama ended up with such little depth at this spot, but it’s been frustrating. A solid underperforming expectations for this group, with Zabien Brown’s performance being the only thing keeping them from being a total dumpster fire.
Safeties
Bray Hubbard is a player that we thought was an All-American level player coming into his 3rd season starting, and instead he’s been very quiet with a handful of rough plays, often over committing to gaps that linebacker were already filling and leaving an open hole in the run game. I think he’s been playing injured since like week 3, but that’s never been confirmed. Still, he just hasn’t had the impact we expected. Similarly, Keon Sabb has been almost invisible this year, and has lost edge contain in some notable situations.
On the other hand, Red Morgan has been excellent at the husky/slot position, blowing up stuff in the backfield and being a death knell for teams trying to throw RPOs.
All in all, though, Hubbard and Sabb have fallen short of expectations this season, though Morgan’s play has brought the group up a little closer to breaking even.
Overall
The play of the linebackers, Red Morgan, Terrance Green, and Devan Thompkins have all individually exceeded expectations, but the defense as a whole hasn’t quite performed like most of us hoped and expected. The situation at cornerback has been a big part of that, sure, but the safeties and pass rush haven’t had the impact we expected either. Hopefully, they can get back on track in this final third of the season.
