At the recently completed NFL Combine, the results produced by former Georgia players were certainly substandard for the most part. However, you could say, the jury’s still out on the Bulldogs and how they performed on what has been called the most controversial event at Indianapolis’ combine: the 50-question (scored 1 to 50), 12-minute timed Wonderlic Test.

“We're measuring a person's ability to acquire information, integrate that information with what they already know, and show the ability to access that to meet the problems they're presented with,” said Elliott Long, a vice president of E.F. Wonderlic Personnel Test Inc., during the mid-1980s, or around the time the Wonderlic became widely publicized for being administered at the NFL Combine.

Personally, I’ve had some interest in the Wonderlic for some time. That's probably because it’s the only event at the combine for which my results could actually compete with NFL prospects. According to the Wall Street Journal, the average score across all populations and professions is 21, whereas the average score of an NFL prospect is slightly lower at around 20.

Conducting a quick search, you’ll discover that supposedly the lowest score in league history is a 4 recorded by LSU’s Morris Claiborne prior to the 2012 draft. Beyond Claiborne, I found that Oklahoma’s Rickey Dixon apparently racked up a 3 in 1988. And even before that, a report surfaced that Ray “Rooster” Jones, a running back for the Pittsburgh Panthers from 1978-1980, scored a 1. That’s difficult to comprehend when, according to National Scouting Combine, the first question on one form of the test is “Name the last month of the year.” And apparently, simply selecting answers randomly on the Wonderlic is likely to get you a score around 6.

Evidently, only a handful of players have scored a 50 or even come close to perfection, including Georgia’s Ben Watson, who recorded a 48 in 2004. Watson was part of a study conducted by the Wall Street Journal in 2005, reviewing Wonderlic data of NFL prospects from 40 major football programs from the previous seven years. For its 21 prospects who had taken the Wonderlic over the seven-year span, Stanford topped the rankings with an average score of 28.8—a score on par with chemists and engineers. Closer to home, Georgia ranked No. 24 of the 40 programs as 39 prospects scored an average of 19.8.

Speaking of Georgia, I discovered the Wonderlic scores for a number of Bulldog players-turned-NFL prospects, beginning with tailback Lars Tate in 1988. Tate scored a 13 when it had been determined that a score of 19 was equivalent to an IQ of 100.

Notably, A.J. Green’s Wonderlic score of 10 was among the five lowest results of the 330 players tested during the 2011 combine. Still, according to Green, he only attempted to answer about 20 of the 50 questions.

“I was just thinking [for too long during the test],'' Green said shortly after his score became public. “I know what I can do [on the field]. I am going to work hard to be the best.''

Similar to Green, I personally prefer clean old-fashioned gut feelings, like those from an NFL general manager during the mid-1980s, who said that if a quarterback scored under a 20, “you might want to delve into it a little further.” But if a defensive lineman had a similar score, “you don’t care.”

Likewise, according to an NFL team’s director of player personnel: “Certainly, you'd have to wonder if your quarterback didn't do very well on [the Wonderlic]—but do you really want a Phi Beta Kappa at nose tackle?”

Simply, it’s a wonder.

ONLINE WONDERLIC TEST

Click the link above, where you'll be taken to a page with instructions and a "Start Quiz!" button at the very bottom. I took the test this morning, and my advice: 1) Calculators aren't allowed but definitely have some scratch paper handy; 2) You only have 12 minutes (timer located just above question number)—that's less than 15 seconds per question—and the time seemingly flies by (just ask A.J. Green).