Alabama’s strength lies up the middle

TUSCALOOSA — Strength up the middle.

It’s a desired trait in baseball. It’s a must in football. And it’s probably the key to Alabama’s defensive improvement this season.

Terrence Cody at nose tackle. Rashad Johnson at free safety. And in the middle, linebackers Rolando McClain and Dont’a Hightower.

McClain, a sophomore, runs the front seven. He leads the team with 77 tackles. Johnson is next with 68, followed by Hightower, a true freshman, who has 55. “Jack” linebacker Brandon Fanney is next with 52 stops. “Sam” linebacker Cory Reamer, who usually leaves the field in Alabama’s nickel and dime packages, has 32 tackles, eighth on the team.

The linebacker corps was probably the area of greatest concern coming into the season, Tide coach Nick Saban said.

“We really had one guy, Rolando McClain, who had played any kind of major role — and he was a freshman last year when he did that,” Saban said.

The key to the unit’s development was the rapid development of Hightower.

“For Dont’a Hightower to come in as a freshman and probably play as well at his position as anybody on our team as a newcomer was huge,” Saban said.

Mississippi State head coach Sylvester Croom said the inside linebackers, McClain and Hightower, can disrupt offenses with their size, speed and savvy.

“They’re big, that’s the first thing,” Croom said.

McClain is 6-4, 249; Hightower is 6-4, 250.

“(Hightower) has played very well for a freshman linebacker,” Croom said.

Scouting the Tide, Croom said Alabama’s pass coverage schemes put a lot of responsibility on those insider linebackers.

“They do a lot of match zone coverage. It’s a zone coverage, but the linebackers play man-to-man within the coverage,” he said. “So there’s a lot of pattern reading there. For a freshman to be able to do that, he’s got to be pretty smart. That’s impressive that they don’t leave guys running free.”

Saban said Hightower’s ability to play inside helped settle the entire corps. The outside linebackers — with Fanney off the edge and Reamer in the flats — have flown under the radar.

“That allowed us move Reamer to ‘Sam.’ He has played extremely well not only in that position but is a core special teams guy,” the coach said.

“Brandon Fanney is standing up and playing. He’s made a lot of plays and is kind of a little bit of an unsung guy when it comes to how much notoriety he gets. But when you look at the point production he’s been one of our four or five top guys in terms of making plays.”

Earlier this season, McClain said the unit has a cohesive quality that was missing last season.

“We trust each other. That is a big thing,” said the sophomore from Decatur.

“Dont’a is beside me and I trust that he is going to be in his spot, and he trusts that I am going to be in my spot. That is a big difference from last year.”

Of course, so is the presence of Cody, the nose tackle who commands double teams and helps the linebackers roam free.

“It’s a blessing to have TC in front of you,” McClain said. “That guy is huge and he takes up a lot of space and he does a great job.”

The linebackers have progressed past basics during the course of the season.

“We’re really grown our packages. We’ve extended what we could do because everybody’s really learned the system a lot better,” Reamer said. “We got a lot of experience that we didn’t have at the beginning of the season. So we can do a lot of different things now that we couldn’t do at the beginning of the year.”

The linebacker from Hoover also added depth in the area that needed it most at the start of the year.

“We’ve kind of grown as a corps. We’ve added depth to each position,” Reamer said. “We’ve got guys who can come in and fill spots whenever we have some people go down.

“Ro got hurt last game and Prince Hall was able to step in. Earlier in the season we probably didn’t have that as much.”

Saban credits the players for helping push each other.

“I think the continuity that that group has developed throughout the course of the season has really been helpful as well because they’ve played well together and helped each other,” the coach said. “I think that’s a real key to the success we’ve been able to have as a defense, is that group and how they’ve performed.”