- Adam Rittenberg, College Football
"My friends, they'll be talking stuff, like, 'Y'all don't look like the other teams used to look in '09 and '11,'" Ragland told ESPN.com on Thursday. "And Coach tells us people from the outside donāt believe weāre the same Alabama. We don't play with the same intensity and tenacity.
"Theyāre not scared to play us any more.
It's the type of feedback that stings, especially for a first-team All-SEC linebacker such as Ragland. But the truth hurts and the truth is Alabama's defense ended the 2014 season not looking like the Alabama defense.
Derrick Henry. He turned down an NFL opportunity -- he received a second-round grade -- for a chance to bookend his career with matching national championships. (Ragland played mostly special teams as a freshman on the 2012 championship team.)
The senior saw how Rolando McClain led Alabama's defense before turning over the reins to Dont'a Hightower. Now it's Ragland's turn. He expects help from defensive linemen Jarran Reed and A'Shawn Robinson and defensive backs Cyrus Jones and Geno Smith.
"We have to get back to guys being more demanding of guys, kicking guys off the field, sometimes you might even have to fight a guy to get him to do what he [should]," Ragland said. "That's the stigma the leaders had back then: being hard-nosed, physical guys and not taking nothing from nobody."
Ragland likes what he's seeing so far this spring. Fellow linebackers Rashaan Evans, Ryan Anderson, Dillon Lee and Reuben Foster are adjusting to bigger roles. Alabama returns a lot up front, and though safety is a major question mark, midyear enrollee Ronnie Harrison has impressed Ragland with interceptions and polished tackling techniques.
He also sees teammates calling out each other more.
"You can't be scared to say something to a guy youāre real cool with," he said.
Alabama is a defense on edge this spring. It's the only way to regain the edge when the fall rolls around.
"People said the Alabama defense used to be cocky," Ragland said. "No, it was just confidence because they knew you werenāt going to run the ball on them and you weren't going to get an inch in the passing game.
"We want to get back to what happened back then."
https://espn.go.com/blog/sec/post/_/id/99939/tide-defense-wants-to-be-feared-again
