<h1>Great memory turns Gabbert into top prospect
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        By Les Carpenter
</span>, Yahoo! Sports</span>
        
Apr 19, 12:14 pm EDT</div></div></div>
Blaine Gabbert rattled through math problems so easily as a child, remembering 
everything from multiplication tables to batting averages, that his 
mother, Bev, began to imagine something magnificent going on in her 
oldest son's head.
"He's almost got a photographic memory,"Â she says over the phone from the family house just outside St. Louis.
This is the attribute that might just take Gabbert far in his pursuit
 to be a starting quarterback in the NFL. He already has those other 
things the NFL desires: standing 6-foot-5 with the ability to fling the 
ball three-quarters of the field in the air. But it is his mind that 
might push him farther, for in the complex world of football offenses 
little matters more than memory.
                
                
"Once you say it to him it is set in stone,"Â says 
David Yost, University of Missouri offensive coordinator and quarterback
 coach. "His ability to process the information is amazing. You give it 
to him, he retains it."Â
The NFL has all kinds of tricks designed to test a quarterback's 
intelligence. Over the past few weeks, as Gabbert has talked to the 
teams that need a quarterback in this draft â€" 
Carolina Panthers, 
Buffalo Bills, 
Arizona Cardinals, 
Tennessee Titans and 
Washington Redskins
 â€" the challenges have come out. Teams have handed him pens and asked 
him to draw from memory his offense from college. Then they dictate the 
elements of their own offense, often one he has never seen before. After
 he has scribbled this on the same board, they erase it and tell him to 
write it all over again.
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<div>Gabbert shows off wheels at the combine.
(US Presswire)</span>        
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Here is where the NFL men learn about the minds of their future 
passers. Can they learn fast? Can they adjust? Ultimately the result is 
often more important than if the quarterback can hit a receiver on the 
dead run with a 65-yard throw.
And the reports that have trickled back to Missouri where Gabbert 
played quarterback are that he has dazzled with his ability to decipher 
offenses. And it is probably the biggest reason he has risen as a junior
 who left college early to one of the top two quarterbacks taken in next
 week's NFL draft.
"I guess I'm good at remembering and picking things up quickly,"Â 
Gabbert says over the phone with a bit of an embarrassed laugh. "I've 
always retained things quickly."Â
Few characteristics are greater for NFL quarterbacks than their mind.
 Offenses have become so complex, with so many different variations and 
adjustments made each week that a quarterback who can understand what is
 going on becomes invaluable. The 700-page playbook Al Saunders 
introduced to the Washington Redskins when he was hired as their 
offensive coordinator in 2006 immediately became legend around the 
league, until it was revealed that 700 pages was actually normal for an 
NFL team and that Saunders' book might really run closer to 1,000 pages 
with all the other options the plays demanded. Many others are similar 
in size.
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<div>David Yost
(US Presswire)</span>        
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At Missouri, Yost sometimes changed the Tigers' offense depending on 
the team they were playing, a common adjustment professional teams make.
 He learned early that Gabbert, who 
reportedly scored 42 out of 50 on the Wonderlic test
 during the NFL scouting combine, could handle the change. Where most 
quarterbacks he worked with usually needed to see the play on a board or
 have it explained with video, Blaine almost always understood when the 
play was first described.
For instance, while preparing for the Insight.com Bowl against Iowa 
late last year, Yost mentioned a particular red zone defense Iowa likes 
to play to Gabbert and quickly offered a solution. Later that day, in 
practice, a red-zone situation arose and Gabbert immediately made the 
change even though it was something he had barely discussed with Yost 
hours before.
Subtle emergence
In an autumn where the quarterback news was dominated by Stanford's senior-to-be Andrew Luck and Auburn's Cam Newton,
 who might be the most scrutinized Heisman Trophy winner in years, 
Gabbert was an afterthought. His Missouri Tigers won 10 games yet he was
 never much in the conversation as a first-round draft pick for this 
spring. He could throw long but he played in Missouri's spread offense 
in which the quarterback is almost always in the shotgun. It's the kind 
of offense that's generally perceived not to translate well to the NFL.
So in many ways Gabbert is kind of a new discovery. Obviously the 
pros knew about him. but they didn't seem to understand exactly what 
they were getting. One big misconception is that he was not fast or 
athletic compared to Newton who can tear down the field. Lanky with 
blonde locks that spill out from beneath his helmet, Gabbert looks like 
he wouldn't be very agile or fast. But Gabbert ran a 4.62 40 yard dash 
at the combine and is, if nothing else, elusive. At Missouri he rushed 
for 458 yards.
He also knows how to play under center having worked since midway 
through high school with a private quarterback coach Skip Stitzell, who 
often drove to the Gabbert's St. Louis-area home. Stitzell only 
instructed Blaine on running a pro-style offense â€" even while Gabbert 
was in college â€" figuring it to be the best base from which to learn.
"I have a joke with Blaine that everyone says he's going to have to 
learn to stand under center and do three-, five- and seven-step drops,"Â 
Stitzell says by phone from his Fayette home. "No he doesn't. I think 
he's actually better under center than in the gun. He's got better 
rhythm and timing. He's very good at the play-action stuff which you 
need to do in the NFL."Â
"Would another year in college have made him a better quarterback?"Â 
Yost asks. "Sure. But talking to NFL people I don't know if another year
 would have made him more marketable to the NFL."Â
So he left.
"The timing was right,"Â Gabbert says. "I know I need to challenge 
myself at the next level. From a quarterback standpoint I knew I was the
 best quarterback coming out of college football."Â
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<div>Gabbert had a school bowl record of 434 passing yards in the loss to Iowa.
(US Presswire)</span>        
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He does not say this in a cocky way. Rather his tone never changes. 
It is something he is sure of, something he believes. He had a decent 
junior year throwing for 3,186 yards and 16 touchdowns in 13 games and 
probably could have improved on all of those numbers had he come back 
next season. It was a surprise to some that he came out, but then, 
Gabbert can surprise.
Like when he says that if he hadn't been such a top athlete he might 
have gone the way of his good friend growing up, Steve May, who went to 
West Point. When the rest of his teammates ask to play the traditional 
"Halo"Â in the Missouri locker room, Gabbert insists on the game "Call of
 Duty,"Â showing a unique understanding of World War II battles and 
generals' tactics.
He says he loves to read about war history, often reading on planes 
when his colleagues are more likely to be sleeping or watching movies. 
His favorite book is "Lone Survivor"Â by Marcus Luttrell, the story of a 
Navy SEAL who was the only member of a four-man team to live through an 
attack in Afghanistan.
In a league where coaches often look to the memoirs of military 
leaders for inspiration, Gabbert's interests will undoubtedly be an 
asset. As will his memory.
"He's the smartest guy I've ever worked with,"Â Yost says.
http://sports.yahoo.com/nfl/news?slug=lc-carpenter_memory_improves_gabbert_stock_041911
Edited by: Highlander