Red-hot and refocused, Will Anderson is already ahead of last year's pace

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — Opposing quarterbacks beware, Alabama’s Terminator is recharged and reloaded. Will Anderson Jr. continued to build on his recent momentum Saturday night, recording 2.5 sacks during the Crimson Tide’s 55-3 Victory over Vanderbilt.

The performance marked the star edge rusher's first multi-sack game of the season and the third straight week that he’s brought down an opposing quarterback at least once.

Through four games, Anderson leads Alabama with 4.5 sacks and 7.5 tackles for a loss. For perspective, thats actually a better start than last year when he had two sacks over the same amount of games. Anderson went on lead the nation with 17.5 sacks en route to earning the Bronko Nagurski Trophy.

He’s got that total in his crosshairs this year.

“That’s the goal, to beat 17 and a half sacks last year,” Anderson said. “But it comes again just doing my job, being patient, making sure I’m preparing the right way and making sure I’m focusing on doing the right things.”

That’s easier said than done.

Despite his hot start, it hasn’t been all smooth sailing for Anderson this season. He failed to record a sack in the season opener against Utah State before committing multiple costly penalties during Alabama’s narrow win at Texas in Week 2. Looking back, Anderson said he was pressing a bit too much early on the season, admitting that he too got a little caught up in keeping up with his own hype.

“A lot of people think like, ‘oh it’s going to be easy,’ but sometimes it can be hard and your mind goes other places,” Anderson said. “I had a new coach, a couple of other things happened and I had to regain my focus.”

Anderson said he was able to recenter himself by talking to his teammates in the outside linebacker room as well as first-year outside linebacker coach Coleman Hutzler. It was Hutzler who was able to draw Anderson’s focus away from sack totals and big plays and towards sticking to his role on any given play.

“Sacks mean a lot,” Anderson said. “But also putting pressure on the QB and getting him off his spot, getting him to move around the pocket, is just as important. When he made the whole room realize that, I think the frustration went down a little bit.”

Opposing offenses have also made life a bit more difficult. Not only has Anderson dealt with more double teams this season, but teams are also looking to come up with schemes to take him out of games.

“It’s crazy because when we look on film a lot of offenses do a lot of different things,” Anderson explained. “When Texas played us, they were doing single-guard play pass, but when they did single-guard play pass, they also kept their running back in to help chip or they also kept the tight end in. Tonight [Vanderbilt] did a lot of Dos [a formation with two tight ends off the ball] and things like that to keep the tight end to chip us and things like that.”

Still, Anderson has persevered, and the hype around him isn’t about to die down anytime soon. Even Nick Saban understands the interest.

“Will’s a good player, you should be talking about him every week,” Saban told reporters following Saturday night’s game. “I mean, he makes a lot of plays, he makes sacks, plays hard, prepares well. He’s a great leader on the team. I’d talk about him for as long as you want to talk about him.”

If Anderson keeps up at this pace, there’s a good chance Alabama fans will be talking about him for years to come. The junior’s 2.5 sacks Saturday give him 29 on his career, moving him ahead of Jonathan Allen for second on the school’s all-time list. While it’s unlikely Anderson is going to reach Derrick Thomas’ school record of 52 sacks before he departs for the NFL this spring, the star defender is still looking to leave the Crimson Tide as one of its all-time greats.

“I like accomplishments,” Anderson said. “I think that’s one of the biggest things for me, I tell myself before every game, ‘What kind of legacy are you going to that game, and what type of legacy are you going to leave at the University of Alabama.’ Just to be that bad, tough dude that people respected, looked up to and everything like that, that’s like one of the biggest things that I want to accomplish — leaving one of the biggest legacies ever at the University of Alabama.”