Gilberry not so 'terrible' after second scrimmage

TUSCALOOSA | There was no getting around the numbers from the University of Alabama football team’s second scrimmage of the fall Saturday, especially when it came to senior defensive end Wallace Gilberry.

Seven tackles, four for a loss and three sacks.

“Did a good job today, had some sacks,” Crimson Tide head coach Nick Saban said during his press conference, after discussing how there had been fewer mental errors or big plays allowed and better tackling.

That was a far cry from the previous Saturday’s comment: “We didn’t play anything like what we need to play on defense today,” and Gilberry’s self-evaluation of “terrible” in regards to four tackles and three sacks.

It made some wonder what Gilberry would consider a good performance, except for the fact he’s obviously made the emotional jump of measuring success at the team level over that of the individual.

For example, since the team’s media day two weeks ago today, Gilberry hasn’t once mentioned how close he is to entering the Crimson Tide record book.

Heading into his final season, Gilberry has 331/2 career tackles for a loss, netting a total of 124 negative yards. He needs only a 1/2 -tackle for a loss to tie Kindal Moorehead (1998-2002) for the Tide’s all-time lead, and one for the record.

“Wallace is a very mature young man,” defensive coordinator and linebackers coach Kevin Steele said. “He’s a good leader in terms of good attitude and work ethic every day. Those are the kinds of guys you want to try and make as good as they can be.”

Gilberry also hasn’t talked about his other accumulated statistics of 37 games, 111/2 sacks, 108 tackles and 23 quarterback hurries over the past three seasons.

His focus is elsewhere.

“We have room to improve and we have time to improve,” Gilberry said earlier this week. “The schedule is going to be tough this year, but we have the guys on defense, and on offense, who are willing to do what it takes to get the job done.”

If anything, the latest statistics will provide some temporary relief and encouragement for the defense. But, like Gilberry’s numbers, there’s no way to spin or deny the biggest concern with this year’s defense is the front seven (lineman and linebackers).

Everyone’s still learning the new scheme, numerous players have new roles, and roughly half the players expected to be in the rotation have either never played in a college football game or taken more than a handful of snaps.

Consider the defensive tackles. Saturday, sophomore Lorenzo Washington stepped in with the first unit, and it’s already obvious the rotation will include true freshmen Luther Davis (6-foot-4, 275 pounds) and Alfred McCullough (6-2, 317). Converted offensive lineman Brian Motley recently sustained a hand injury that’s expected to keep him out at least a week, and he’ll start the season wearing a cast.

“His best thing is he can really take coaching,” junior end Bobby Greenwood said about Motley. “You can’t shoot from offensive line to defensive line, if you can’t take coaching it wouldn’t work. But he took it all with an open mind, and he’s been working really hard at it and doing great.”

However, the four defensive tackles combined have 32 snaps of experience, all by Washington, who couldn’t participate in spring contact drills due to a pectoral tear.

The rest of the front seven features only two players with significant playing time: sophomore Prince Hall, who is being challenged for playing time, and senior Keith Saunders, the starter at the new hybrid linebacker/end spot known as “Jack.”

“We just need to come together a little more,” Saunders said. “I know what they can do and once upon a time it was me.”

That essentially leaves Gilberry as the elder incumbent and most proven of the front seven, ahead of Greenwood, who in the two scrimmages had nine tackles and a sack.

Thus, the reasoning for saying he played “terrible” when he didn’t, and that the defense is determined not to have the stigma of being the Tide’s weakness. His target audience with those kinds of statements isn’t the media or fans, but younger teammates.

“It’s definitely something I’m not running from, but I don’t consider myself a leader because there are guys on the team who I look up to, to do the right thing,” Gilberry said. “It’s a learning process and at the same time it’s a gelling process.”

That gelling appears to be happening, slowly but surely, though as Saban reminded reporters Saturday there is no such thing as an end during camp, rather everything transposes into the beginning of a new season.

But one of the goals is to get more defensive players thinking and playing like Gilberry, who’s working on the little things to get big results, and continues to go all-out during both games and practices alike.

“We’re definitely going to get after them,” Gilberry said. “At times we’re getting after them so hard you may think there’s 12 coming at you, or 13.”

Reach Christopher Walsh at christopher.walsh@tuscaloosanews.com or at 205-722-0196.