Alabama DB stepping up every time his ‘number is called’

Alabama football’s defensive back Chuck McDonald is taking full advantage of more opportunities to be on the field.

McDonald signed with Alabama to play cornerback, but he has shown his skill set can be used at more than just CB. He is listed on the Tide’s depth chart as a husky defensive back, which is a hybrid safety role.

The California native is on pace to develop into a defensive back who can contribute at several spots in the Tide’s secondary in the future, and he is stepping up when the Tide needs him.

“You have to have guys that step up in bigger moments as the season goes on, be it because of injuries or whatever it is,” Alabama’s defensive coordinator Kane Wommack said. “You’re gonna have guys that maybe had one role at the beginning of the season, and that role gets to continually increase. And the thing that I’m so proud of Chuck, when his number is called, he steps up. Saturday was a great example of that. The PBU on the fourth-down play,  where he was on the blitz, the first fourth down of the game, he gets another PBU back in the back of the end zone. Probably the biggest play that he made, I don’t know if I should say the biggest play, but one of the biggest plays- was when their quarterback scrambled and kind of got on the outside and had a chance to go score early in the game. We sent him off the edge in a blitz, and he comes back, and he ran whatever it was, 15, 16 yards downfield there with great effort and got the quarterback on the ground, gave us a chance to get that stop on fourth down, later in that drive. When you see guys like that, that are continually doing things right in practice and then they’re playing so hard and it’s showing up on game day, it’s pretty easy to show the reward of what it looks like to do things the right way.”

Alabama fans should get ready to see more of McDonald in the future.