3 Pete Golding replacements Alabama needs to hire for an elite defense

Matt House

Brian Kelly got Matt House to leave the Chiefs to come back to the college game at LSU. If Nick Saban really wanted to make a statement on defense, he’d go and steal a high-performing defensive coordinator out from under an SEC rival.

House took over a defense that gave up 26.6 points per game and 377.5 yards per game and improved them to 23.7 points per game and 361.6 yards per game. He has NFL experience that will give him cache and his work at Kentucky in 2018 was legitimately impressive.

He was actually a walk-on for Nick Saban at Michigan State, so there is some familiarity there.

Brad White

Kentucky has done so much more with so much less, it’s no wonder the dudes on Mark Stoops’ staff are always in danger of being poached.

Instead of getting a former Kentucky DC to take over at Alabama, the Crimson Tide could try to poach the current one instead.

Brad White has been on Stoops’ staff since 2018, running the defense since 2019. He’s kept the Wildcats among the top defenses in the SEC all the while.

In fact, Kentucky’s defense under White has been comparable to Alabama’s under Golding over the past four years. If he could do that with significantly less talent, what could he do with Alabama’s riches?