Alabama News Center 2023 football preview: University of West Alabama
University of West Alabama running back Bry Webb carries the ball in a game with Miles College. Webb is one of the players head coach Brett Gilliland is counting on to help deliver more wins for the Tigers this season after several losses in close games last season. (Trent Spruell / University of West Alabama Athletics)
A cliché of football coaches is that the outcome of a game turns on half a dozen plays.
West Alabama coach Brett Gilliland said his Tigers’ losses in a 5-6 2022 campaign had far fewer pivotal points.
“Most of the games we lost were very close,” Gilliland said. “They always say football games come down to five or six plays, but most of the ones we lost came down to one or two.”
The Tigers experienced some injuries, but the coach said that’s not an excuse.
“That’s just a part of it,” Gilliland said. “At this level, if you get injuries in spots that you’re already thin in depth-wise, it can really hurt you. We had some of that. We played really good most of the time on defense. Offensively, we just needed to find ways to move the ball a little bit better and get a good score when we had opportunities.
“Most of those crucial plays went against us,” he said. “That’s on us. We gotta make plays when we have opportunities.”
College football season is approaching, and Alabama News Center is previewing the 2023 season. Next up is West Alabama.
Alabama News Center: What are the prospects for this season?
Brett Gilliland: We’ve made a decent amount of changes on offensive schematics and philosophy, and we’ve got a new offensive coordinator, Carmen Felus. He’s not new to us. He was here on my original staff as the OC and then he left to go to Stony Brook to be the offensive coordinator up there. He missed it down here. He wanted to come back, and so we brought him back last year as the special teams coordinator. Some things happened at the end of the year, and we moved him over to the offensive coordinator role. We’ve got some new thought processes, new ideas, new schemes going on the offensive side of the ball. We’ve got a lot of guys back on both sides that have played a lot of football here. We feel good about the nucleus of guys we’ve got. I’d say the prospect here is like it’s gonna be every year: We’re gonna expect to line up and compete to win every game we play. That starts with a really, really good nonconference game here at our place on August 31 against (Angelo State), a top-five team in the country. We’ll get to find out pretty quick where we stand.
ANC: What is the strength of this year’s team?
Gilliland: The D-line has a good chance to be our strength, which I felt like they were last year as well. … We’ve got a lot of guys back in the secondary. The main piece that we’re replacing on defense is Michael Anderson, who was the Defensive Player of the Year in the conference. He was our Mike linebacker and just a special player for us on the field. More importantly, he was a really, really strong leader off the field. Replacing him is the biggest, biggest question mark, I guess you’d say. But we like the guys that we have to step in there. It’s just any time you’ve got a Player of the Year in the conference to replace, you know those are some shoes to fill. I think the running back position is again gonna be a strong point for us. And I like our quarterback room. We have several guys there that have been in the program now and kind of fit what we’re trying to do offensively.
ANC: Who are your team’s standouts?
Gilliland: Davonchae Bryant — who we call Pig — probably as an inside defensive lineman, defensive tackle, was very up in the top of every statistical category last year. He just had a really, really, really strong season and was first-team all-conference. I think he kind of leads that strong defensive line from an interior position. I think Jamal Ellis, a defensive end, is definitely one that that we expect to have a big year. He was second-team all-conference last year. On the back end, Shamar Lewis has been a multiple-year team captain for us at safety. Shamar is, he’s really kind of a heartbeat of our team. He was first-team All-GSC last year and just a player we need to have a good year on and off the field. Kel Williams is a guy at corner who was second-team all-conference last year. Trevon Stanford at linebacker was an all-conference player for us last year. He’s returning as well. Offensively, Bry Webb and (Antonio) Tony Brown are kind of running back by committee. We feel really good about both those guys. A guy I think will really have a good year is our tight end, Caeleb Bass. He is a really good receiving tight end and does a good job in the run game. Last year, Tucker Melton handled our quarterback duties; he transferred in to us. Spencer Arceneaux also transferred in last year and played sparingly. Both those guys had a really good spring and competed really well. They both do similar things, but they both have their own little niche. It’s still a competition, but I would envision at this point — I would say that there’s a spot for both of those guys on the field at different times. I’m excited about that room and what it brings.
ANC: What game(s) do your fans have circled on your schedule?
Gilliland: It’s cliché to say the first one, but I think the first one is a big game. It’s a Thursday night game in Livingston, which we haven’t had in a couple of years. And our fans always loved Thursday nights. It’s against the program that was the Lone Star champions last year, Angelo State. They’re picked to win the Lone Star again. They were No. 1 in Super Region 4 last year and went deep into the playoffs. I think they’re a 12-win team from last year. They’re coming to Livingston on a Thursday night to open the season. They should be preseason top five or six in every poll. I think that’s a big one because it’s a team that we don’t always line up against. Other than that, you look through our schedule and it’s the same every year. The Gulf South Conference, week in and week out, it’s rivals. When Delta State comes to Livingston, that’s always a big deal. It’s always a big game. Our fans have had a long-standing rivalry with Delta State in all sports. West Georgia, West Florida — I think those three were top three in the conference last year, with Delta and West Florida being co-champs. Obviously, those are the ones that would be circled, for sure.
ANC: What is your lingering question?
Gilliland: I think the biggest question is, can we stay healthy? I think that’s every team, but especially at this level. You feel good about a lot of your first-team guys, but then you don’t have as much depth behind guys because of just what this level is. At offensive line, we’re replacing several guys. I think that’s a question mark that we need to answer. We need to see those guys come together. We’ve got the right guys, I think, to do that. I’m excited about seeing their growth, but there will be some new guys out there, which always leads to a question mark.
Alabama News Center is posting season previews for all 16 college football programs in Alabama. Read a preview for Birmingham-Southern College and look for a new football preview each weekday until the 2023 season begins.
