NASHVILLE, Tenn. — The tone was set during Alabama’s voluntary workouts earlier this summer. During an abdominal exercise, one of the Crimson Tide’s players opted out, claiming he couldn’t participate.

“That’s crap,” said redshirt sophomore linebacker Deontae Lawson, who reminded the player that’s now how things are done at Alabama.

“It was an optional workout, but we don’t take all that optional stuff for granted,” offensive lineman J.C. Latham said recalling the incident. “Like we all do it… We’re all in this year, we’re not losing. We’ve got this stuff lined up. We’ve got a great team.”

The mindset is a bit different this offseason for an Alabama team now two seasons removed from its last national title. During the Crimson Tide’s appearance at SEC Media Days on Wednesday, Nick Saban spoke several times about how “hungry” his players were entering the coming season.

Latham said he felt disrespected by the media’s lowered expectations of Alabama this offseason. Meanwhile, the Tide’s other player representatives all seemed to take an edgy approach to the doubt cast on them following a rare two-loss regular season last year.

“I feel like there’s a chip on our shoulder,” Alabama defensive back Kool-Aid McKinstry said. “The mistakes that we made last year, we faced them. Now we’re learning from them, and we’re making sure that we don’t make those same mistakes again.”

Alabama’s making sure of that, and it starts with instances such as the one Lawson addressed during summer workouts.

“I feel like we’re all working as a team,” McKinstry said. “Everybody’s busting their butt to get back to the Alabama standard. I’ve been seeing days where guys are just exhausted, and it makes me catch the chills — just right now, even speaking about it. I can’t wait to get back to those guys.”

So what does the Alabama stander entail? Defensively speaking, McKinstry said it comes down to a few key factors.

“I feel like we play fast,” McKinstry said, “play physical, play smart, play together.”

Latham said it comes down to discipline and accountability, as the Crimson Tide tries to clean up its act after finishing tied for No. 126 nationally averaging 7.9 penalties per game.

“Every single day in practice, workouts, whatever it might be, we got guys who are trying to be more disciplined, hold each other accountable, trying to be responsible as far as that aspect goes, especially myself,” Latham said. “We lost games off of just not being disciplined. We just couldn’t handle them. It was just strictly off of discipline.”

Latham is fully confident Alabama will overcome those lapses in confidence this season. In fact, he went as far as to predict a perfect record and a national championship for the Crimson Tide.

First, though, Alabama is going to have to work for it.

"We do what we've got to do to get the job done," Latham said. "We're all about anything we’ve got to do get our hands dirty."