[msqueri]

There is something called football intelligence, and it is very useful.  Speed without football intelligence is a waste; it just gets you to the wrong place faster.

And the notion that it's particularly tied to regular intelligence is self-flattery more than empirical. The evidence is overwhelming that there is no positive correlation between the Wonderlic and future football performance. Being smart is just not all that important for football. Football intelligence is not synonymous with regular intelligence. Does Kendall Williamson have higher football intelligence than Tyrann Mathieu? Come on. For what it's worth, one study showed no correlation at every position with the exception that being smart is negatively correlated with being good at football at tight end and defensive back.

Moreover, football intelligence being important is not the same thing as it being something that coaches can cultivate. Maybe it's largely about instincts or innate spatial awareness or processing ability. If it is something that can be cultivated, it seems overwhelmingly likely that one would do so by focusing on muscle memory, physical drills on your head/eye position, and watching other players you want to emulate more than making everything about the complexity of football/schemes/playbooks. I'd think the trick about football intelligence is letting the game slow down for you and become simpler rather than trying to see increasingly more complexity in everything.

And, regardless, football intelligence being important does not mean that Stanford systematically has players better suited for a focus on the cerebral part of the game such that it would behoove us to make that part of our identity. Again, no correlation between intelligence - even intelligence as measured by the NFL with an attempt to be diagnostically useful for draft purposes! - and football performance. If our players don't have any higher football intelligence than opposing players, then why on earth would we make intelligence something we try to make a comparative advantage on the football field? The answer is that we want to believe that the kind of players we recruit are better suited for this than the brutes who go to Oregon State or Arizona State and it makes us feel good to build an identity around it. But those brutes have played football just as long, train just as hard, and tend to have fewer non-football pursuits that detract from their time to learn a playbook or watch players they'd like to emulate.

Ultimately, football is about strength, speed, quickness, other elements of athleticism, intensity, coordination/chemistry with teammates, etc., not brainpower. It's just not helpful to build a football team's identity around "intelligence."

P.S. I want folks to perhaps dwell on the fact that Stanford's greatest football prior to Shaw came with terms like Thunder Chickens, Tunnel Workers Union, Party in the Backfield. From Ralston to Green to Harbaugh we've hit on something when we've tried to tap into grittiness and/or swagger, not intellect. The "Stanford Men" and our self-flattery that our players are just different than elsewhere have been constant across all eras. What unlocks greatness is getting your hands dirty and digging deeper.

[msqueri]

There is something called football intelligence, and it is very useful.  Speed without football intelligence is a waste; it just gets you to the wrong place faster.

And the notion that it's particularly tied to regular intelligence is self-flattery more than empirical. The evidence is overwhelming that there is no positive correlation between the Wonderlic and future football performance. Being smart is just not all that important for football. Football intelligence is not synonymous with regular intelligence. Does Kendall Williamson have higher football intelligence than Tyrann Mathieu? Come on. For what it's worth, one study showed no correlation at every position with the exception that being smart is negatively correlated with being good at football at tight end and defensive back.

Moreover, football intelligence being important is not the same thing as it being something that coaches can cultivate. Maybe it's largely about instincts or innate spatial awareness or processing ability. If it is something that can be cultivated, it seems overwhelmingly likely that one would do so by focusing on muscle memory, physical drills on your head/eye position, and watching other players you want to emulate more than making everything about the complexity of football/schemes/playbooks. I'd think the trick about football intelligence is letting the game slow down for you and become simpler rather than trying to see increasingly more complexity in everything.

And, regardless, football intelligence being important does not mean that Stanford systematically has players better suited for a focus on the cerebral part of the game such that it would behoove us to make that part of our identity. Again, no correlation between intelligence - even intelligence as measured by the NFL with an attempt to be diagnostically useful for draft purposes! - and football performance. If our players don't have any higher football intelligence than opposing players, then why on earth would we make intelligence something we try to make a comparative advantage on the football field? The answer is that we want to believe that the kind of players we recruit are better suited for this than the brutes who go to Oregon State or Arizona State and it makes us feel good to build an identity around it. But those brutes have played football just as long, train just as hard, and tend to have fewer non-football pursuits that detract from their time to learn a playbook or watch players they'd like to emulate.

Ultimately, football is about strength, speed, quickness, other elements of athleticism, intensity, coordination/chemistry with teammates, etc., not brainpower. It's just not helpful to build a football team's identity around "intelligence."

P.S. I want folks to perhaps dwell on the fact that Stanford's greatest football prior to Shaw came with terms like Thunder Chickens, Tunnel Workers Union, Party in the Backfield. From Ralston to Green to Harbaugh we've hit on something when we've tried to tap into grittiness and/or swagger, not intellect. The "Stanford Men" and our self-flattery that our players are just different than elsewhere have been constant across all eras. What unlocks greatness is getting your hands dirty and digging deeper.