Notre Dame football: Breaking down Jalen Elliott’s combine

Former Notre Dame safety Jalen Elliott’s draft projections varied greatly, which meant that he needed a strong combine performance to boost his status.

Much like his fellow Notre Dame safety Alohi Gilman, Jalen Elliott’s draft projection was extremely volatile, with the former Irish safety being projected similarly to Gilman, with mocks suggesting he could be selected anywhere between the third and seventh rounds of the draft.

Coming off a strong Reese’s Senior Bowl performance, Elliott had seen the hype surrounding his draft status increase leading into the NFL Combine. He looked to continue to boost his draft stock by performing well at the combine.

At the measurements portion of the combine, Elliott was officially measured at 6’0″ tall and 205-pounds, with 9 1/8″ hands, 31 3/4″ arms and a 76 5/8″ wingspan. Most of his measurements fell in line with a standard NFL safety with the exception of his wingspan, which was longer than most, which is certainly appealing to NFL teams.

Another area that is of importance to NFL teams evaluating prospects is their time in the 40-yard dash. Unfortunately for Elliott, he performed well under expectations, posting an official time of 4.80 seconds in the 40-yard dash, which was the worst time among safeties.

The former Notre Dame safety would post fairly disappointing results in the bench press when he would only put up 15 repetitions of 225-pounds. The 15 reps were fifth-worst among participating safeties.

While Elliott’s vertical jump of 34″ bested the 32″ jump posted by Gilman, it would serve as the fifth-worst among all of the participating safeties. The result was somewhat disappointing for a safety with his length.

However, Elliott would perform much better in both the broad jump and the three-cone events. The 125″ broad jump would place Elliot as the seventh-best among all participating safeties, while his 6.87 second time would be the 4th best.

While Elliott’s 40-yard dash time certainly is the most disappointing performance of any of his events, his performance in the Senior Bowl, in the broad jump and in the three-cone event may have mitigated any major damage to his draft stock.

Elliott is expected to perform much better at the Notre Dame Pro Day this month. Most analysts expect him to be able to post a 40-yard dash time that is more indicative of the speed that they saw on his game film, which is more likely in the 4.5-4.6 second range than the 4.8 second time he posted at the combine.

If Elliott is able to post a time in the 4.5-4.6 second range at his Pro Day, he is likely to see his stock resurrected towards the top end of his draft projections. He will undoubtedly need to perform well at his Pro Day to assure a higher draft slot.