Big Board ranking: #89
Positional ranking: #6
Overview
Position: S
College: Alabama
Class: Senior
Age: 22
Measurables
Height: 6’1”
Weight: 209 lbs.
Arm length: 32”
Hand size: 8 1/2″
Athletic testing
40-yard dash: 4.55 sec.
10-yard split: 1.56 sec.
Vertical jump: N/A
Broad jump: N/A
Bench press: 17 reps
3-cone drill: N/A
Short shuttle: N/A
Strengths
Ideal height and plus length. Very smart with great awareness. Tremendous instincts as a deep safety. Excellent reading the quarterback’s eyes. Superb play recognition in zone coverage. Extremely quick reaction time. Great ability to recognize routes and break to make a play in coverage. Very good ball skills. Able take it to the house with three career pick-sixes. Quality speed and range. Closes off separation when coming down to defend the flat. Ideal skillset to match up with tight ends. Saw some snaps covering wide receivers in the slot. Exceptional fluidity at his size to flip his hips in space. Diagnoses screen passes and flows to the ball. Physical tackler that will take on ball-carriers with a head-on wrap-up tackle. Very strong grabbing ball-carriers by the shoulders and throwing them down. Does a great job containing outside runs. Very strong taking on the block of Georgia tight end Darnell Washington in 2021 SEC Championship Game. Can lay some thumping hits. Impressive burst and timing as a blitzer. Not attacked when playing traditional coverage in shootout loss to Tennessee with most of the defense struggling (2022).
Weaknesses
Can lower the target area to be more consistent as a tackler. Would like to see him be more aggressive in run fits at the goal line. General pursuit can be more consistently urgent. Will take downhill angles that leave tackles just out of reach. Struggles with an efficient path to his man working through traffic in coverage. Needs to be quicker to defend intermediate routes in front of him as a deep safety. Gave too much of a cushion late in prevent coverage versus Tennessee (2022). Allowed game-tying touchdown in regulation and game-winning conversion in overtime versus LSU (2022).
NFL comparison
Jaylinn Hawkins
Conclusion
Overall, Battle is an all-around safety with high awareness in zone coverage and the size/skillset to match up with tight ends. His best fit would be with a team that mostly plays with two deep safeties on the backend.