Non-athletic qualities of a great QB

"PHYSICAL": Ok, everyone knows that a strong arm, good eyesight, footwork, physical stature and athleticism/agility/etc are all important to be a QB. These are prerequisites to the position from a physical perspective, and along with development for accuracy and execution, determine whether the Qb in question meets the bar or not. There are hundreds of QB's who meet this bar of measure in each season of HS and college play.

"MENTAL": Now, after a QB is determined to have these qualities, or to have the potential to craft the QB to these, the attention goes to other measures...

These are the separators, and the teams which are able to find the best in these qualities, atop them meeting the physical qualities, are the ones who can be championship and/or "special" QB's. These are extremely hard to come by and acquire.

Here is a list of the more mental aspects, and a GREAT QB must have most, if not all of these.

1) Playbook memory - The QB must have very strong recall of the entire playbook. There should be no hesitation on behalf of the OC to call any play, any time he wishes. This is "Long Term Memory". It is the kind of memory that allows one to recall info for a "facts-based" test. If this is not natural, extreme time can be spent on the players own time to drill it all in.

2) Logic/Reasoning - The QB is capable of identifying trends/patterns, and the flow of the game, and to use reasoning skills to proactively adjust before the snap, after the snap, and in consultation with the coaches/team thereafter (sidelines, signaling, at half, etc...) The QB should be able to offer insights and recommendations for adjustment to the coaches.... (Game Management is mostly a subset of logic/reasoning, but good game management also incorporates other skills in-game communications, adjustments and leadership with the team and coaches, and of course time management skills.) A Qb with this skill set will rarely leave you thinking "WTF?" for in-game situations.

3) Working/Dynamic Memory - This is determined by how well and QB can juggle numerous bits of information simultaneously in their mind. The ability to retain information from a scan of the field in one direction, and receiver and other players positions on the field, while processing other elements of the field at the same time, is indicative of their skill in this area.

4) Executive Processing Speed - This is determined with how quick a player can mentally move from one bit-or-set of information to another and then back. It is more than running through a single simple task quickly. If a Qb is unable to do so quickly, they will often be a serial information processor, and for a QB, they will either call a timeout too soon or too slow, and also be too slow to process the defensive in relation to themselves and their team mates.

5) Visual Processing ("Field Vision" is strongly a function of this cognitive skillset) - The capacity to easily imagine and visualize numerous physical items in relation to one another aid the QB to see things with clarity/accuracy, instead of seeing a blur of indistinguishable haze. This is extremely hard to develop at the HS-and-below level, so very few QB's arrive at college campuses with this skillset, and that means that the coaching staff MUST be able to craft practice and training drills and conditions to incrementally develop this capacity for a QB. How a coaching staff does or does not do this, could be the most important element of the QB's development (or lack thereof).

One question that comes to mind is the recruiters and coaching staffs understanding of these factors in their evaluation, selection and training of the teams QB. I think some schools have a system in place that considers these either explicitly or implicitly (perhaps even subconsciously).

If I had a chance to spend time with Cam and Les, these are the things I would love to be able to listen to and understand about their process. Of course, that is a pipe dream, so I just hope they do, and more importantly, I just hope they are implementing real changes to recruitment, evaluation and development for our Tigers.

However they do it, I am hopeful for the future. I can't point to anything, and I am not a homer, but for some reason I think they are crafting significant changes.