Alabama NewsCenter 2021 football preview: University of North Alabama
North Alabama Coach Chris Willis is taking a lot of calls from NFL teams interested in defensive lineman Wallace Cowins Jr. This fall, Cowins will help the Lions through a tough schedule. (North Alabama Athletics)
Chris Willis and his North Alabama Lions were able to play the four games they needed to play in the fall of 2020 to fulfill the necessary step in their transition to Division I.
Now there’s one more step and it’s a doozy, with challenging opponents up and down the 2021 fall slate.
“We’re just trying to finish out this last year of the transition and hope to be competitive and hope to win some games with a very, very challenging schedule for our level of play,” Willis said. “We’re just trying to keep our head above water to get through this.”
The Lions are preparing to return to the field this fall as football goes back to its traditional season even as the COVID-19 pandemic continues. Alabama NewsCenter is taking a look at the upcoming season and today is focused on North Alabama.
Alabama NewsCenter: What is the outlook for this season?
Chris Willis: You take a team like us that’s been Division II that’s moving to Division I. (You’re) going through a transition. You can play 11 games and you can go 11-0. You’re not going to get anything for it, other than your hometown newspaper and some local papers might put out a nice article on us. We were not going to get a trophy. There’s not going to be any playoffs. I hate to use this word, but it has the exhibition feel to it. But these kids, they just want to play. At the end of the day, if you really want to play the game of football, for the love of the game, you’re gonna do whatever it takes, whenever they ask you to come do it. In the world of FCS, I mean, I don’t know if they do a power ranking schedule, but … we’re playing six to seven nationally ranked opponents out of an 11-game schedule. It’s about like playing in the SEC when you get, week in and week out, tough games. Somebody asked me who my easy game was, and I don’t have one. Everybody is pretty good.
North Alabama Head Coach Chris Willis expects his team to be underdogs in at least seven or eight games this season, the final year in the Panthers’ transition to Division I. (North Alabama Athletics)
ANC: What is the strength of this year’s team?
Willis: Well, right now we do have a number of guys that are battle tested. They’ve played a lot of games over the last couple years. I’m not going to say we’re an older team, but … we played guys when we started this transition. We played a lot of young guys that played as freshmen. All those same guys are still in the program. A lot of guys got in the BYU game, they got in the Liberty game. They’re battle tested, so to speak. Now the defense was a stronger unit than our offense last year. We struggled offensively in the four games, but also our No. 1 quarterback opted out. He didn’t play, so we had to play with No. 2 and No. 3 guys. Obviously, there were some struggles last year running the football. We’re trying to fix some things on that side of the ball. We like everything we’ve seen, … but the strength is the defense right now. If they’ll play like they did last year, all we’ve got to do is get this offense caught up. I feel good about opportunities in some of these games. We’re gonna be underdogs in at least seven or eight ballgames.
ANC: Who are your team’s standouts?
Willis: In the secondary, we’ve got KJ Smith back. He’s on the first team Academic All American. He’s on the back end playing corner/safety. You’ve got Alonzo Craighton, who is another DB. We’re thinking they’re going to give us some big things. We’ve got a transfer named Evan Jones that’s come in. At linebacker, we’ve got Will Evans, who’s been around here for quite some time, along with Jakob Cummings and Darrell Sims. On D-line, the one that the NFL teams are calling me about a lot is Wallace Cowins Jr. We’ve got Terrell Townsend on the other end. We’ve got some new faces at the middle. Then you move over to the other side of the ball, you’ve got Dexter Boykin and Cortez Hall back at receiver. They’re our veterans. Running back is kind of up in the air right now. We’ll see how it all unfolds, but Parker Driggers has been a guy that’s kind of leading the charge there. On the offensive line, you’ve got Jacob Gentle back, Cam Watson’s back. They’ve got a lot of reps under their belt. Connor Robbins is a big transfer who’s coming in, along with Blake Walker. Quarterback-wise, it’s up in the air. You’ve got Blake Dever back, who played. We’ve got Rett Files back, who saw some action. We brought in a transfer by the name of Jaylen Gipson. There’s some good battles going on there. And we’ve got who I think is the best punter in our league this year, Joe Gurley. He’s back, along with our really good long snapper, Brett Burton.
ANC: What game do your fans have circled on your schedule?
Willis: We open up at Southeastern Louisiana. Here’s a team that’s got the Player of the Year in FCS Division I … and we’re on the road. That’s a challenge in itself, just going through the logistics of that. The game that I know everybody will pay attention to as well is we go to Jacksonville State. That’s an in-state school. It’s kind of a rivalry. It’s kind of been one-sided since we’ve moved to Division I. They’ve been some good football games, but they’ve had the upper hand. We play Kennesaw State here at home, which is not too far from us and they’re within the Big South. That’s a team that we’re aware of when we’re recruiting. We play Chattanooga here in Florence for the 9/11 game. That’ll be an interesting game. I can probably go down the list, that’s some of the ones that everybody’s gonna pay attention to. Monmouth made it to the semifinals in the playoffs in the spring. They were one game away from playing for the national championship. We’ve got them in New Jersey.
ANC: What is your lingering question?
Willis: The No. 1 question for us in personnel is, who’s going to be the quarterback? This school has always produced and put out really good quarterbacks.
Alabama NewsCenter is posting season previews for all 15 college football programs in Alabama. Read about West Alabama, Tuskegee, Samford, Alabama A&M and Birmingham-Southern, and look for a new preview each day.
