TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — No one in the SEC takes the ball away better than Alabama. The Crimson Tide leads the conference and ranks No. 3 in the nation with 24 takeaways this season. That’s become a requirement under first-year defensive coordinator Kane Wommack whose Swarm D concept is predicated on forcing turnovers.

“Takeaways, it’s almost like muscle memory,” Wommack said Monday. “You have to continue to preach it. You have to continue to drill it.”

That’s exactly what Alabama does right before its scout-team period every practice. Since the spring, the Tide has participated in a six-prong exercise it calls its “takeaway circuit.” Wommack didn’t reveal all six drills, but a few include interceptions, punching the ball out, raking at the quarterback and fumble recovery.

“What happens is, all of a sudden, you do those drills day in and day out, and then you go to scout-team periods and you say, OK, this period right here, we’re not going to work on tackling, we’re going to work on punching the ball out,” Wommack explained. “I don’t want to see any wrap-ups. All I want to see is you punching the ball out. All of a sudden, it becomes muscle memory on game days.”

It’s hard to argue with the results. Alabama has recorded 16 takeaways over its last five games, tallying at least three in each contest.

“It’s definitely valuable,” linebacker Jihaad Campbell said of the takeaway circuit. “When you think about the habits that you’re creating to make those turnovers in the game, you look back and be like ‘Dang, how did I do that? Well, maybe it was because of what I was doing in practice and I actually took the drill serious.’”

Alabama forced three turnovers during last weekend’s 52-7 victory over Mercer. That included its first defensive touchdown, as freshman cornerback Zabien Brown returned a fumble 68 yards for a score.

Alabama’s emphasis on turnovers is a new concept for Brown, who played a man-coverage defense at California’s Mater Dei High School. Now 10 games into his career, he said the Swarm-D approach is “just second nature.”

“It’s just 11 hats to the ball, Swarm-D mentality, everybody just making an impact,” Brown said. “... It’s extremely valuable, allowing the ball to get into our offense’s hands which is very dangerous for other teams.”

Takeaways have become a mentality for Alabama, but the Tide can’t afford to stray away from the fundamentals. According to PFF, Alabama recorded its worst tackling grade of the season (53.1), missing 10 tackles. Safety Malachi Moore, who leads the team with an 88.6 tackling grade from PFF, says it’s all about choosing the right opportunities.

“It’s more the first guy in makes the tackle, and the second guy comes in and punches the ball,” Moore explained. “Knowing your situation of when to take a shot at the ball and when not to. Nine times out of 10, you’re looking at a guy, he’s looking at you, you’ve got to make the tackle. And if you keep him up, your teammate comes in and takes a shot at the ball.”

And Alabama is well-prepared for what happens next.

“I just feel like as a whole defense we’ve taken that next step,” Moore said about Alabama’s ability to create turnovers. “You’ve got Qua [Russaw] out there making diving interceptions and one-hand picks and stuff like that. I think the ball’s a very important piece to us defensively.”

No. 10 Alabama (8-2, 4-2) will look to add a few more takeaways to the tally this week when it travels to Oklahoma (5-5, 1-5) for a 6:30 p.m. CT kickoff on Saturday. The Sooners rank second-worst in the SEC committing 18 turnovers through 10 games