Joe Alt enters the 2023 college season as one of the favorites to be the first offensive lineman selected in the 2024 NFL draft. The Notre Dame left tackle has shown impressive quickness, great length, solid technical mastery and upside to grow even more.
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Alt still has a couple of areas where he can improve upon his game to make himself an even more appealing prospect in the upcoming season. After watching five Notre Dame games from 2022 (Ohio State, North Carolina, USC, Stanford, Clemson), here are two facets where Alt can improve.
Driving power
Alt is a very impressive athlete for being 6-foot-8, and he moves quite well for a taller OT. He does have some struggles in creating movement in the run game when tasked with heads-up blocking or working solo on a stouter defender.
Part of the issue is out of his control; he’s too long to generate a lot of force against defenders who have a natural leverage advantage against him and understand how to use it. Taller NFL vets like Taylor Decker and Mike McGlinchey have had to overcome similar issues coming out of college as top-20 overall picks. Alt generally bends well but doesn’t always do so when having to reach at extension for the initial block.
Some of Alt’s struggles in this area are a propensity to stop driving his feet while engaged. He often tries to create movement with more shoulder torque and initial pop from his long (and impressive) punch. But after that initial horn-locking, Alt doesn’t always churn the feet or engage his lower body to drive and attack. It’s reminiscent of another first-round OT from the past, Jack Conklin. When Conklin remembered to keep the feet active, he was very good for both the Titans and Browns. When he didn’t, he had some real struggles against the superior power of the EDGE defenders in the NFL.
Inside shoulder in pass protection
Alt did not allow a single sack in the games I watched. In fact, Notre Dame had him credited with a clean sack slate all season. But he does show some vulnerability with his inside (right) shoulder when facing stand-up rushers who can avoid the initial punch.
This is related to the aforementioned length. There is a point of diminishing returns for length at tackle, and Alt approaches it. When he fires out those long arms, it naturally takes him a tick longer to reset and readjust to the defender than it does for a guy who is “just” 6-foot-6. Alt showed a tendency to exacerbate this by leaning out over his toes instead of sliding his inside foot forward when outside rushers tried to cross his face or spin inside.
