Rams wide receiver Puka Nacua carved out four to six weekend hours to watch and analyze game film... as a seventh grader, according to his middle and high school football coach, Jeremy Hill.

Hill could track how much film his players watched on Hudl, a tool for sports video and data analysis. Most of Hill's middle schoolers logged maybe 20-30 minutes over the weekends, and some of that was spent making highlight tapes for YouTube. Meanwhile, Nacua was studying more than most of the Orem High School team, not just his middle school teammates.

"He would come to practice and he would bring up stuff he saw in the game or the chalk talk and he was right on top of it," Hill said.

Nacua's work ethic, family hardships and infectious attitude have been well-documented, but his elite football IQ (and willingness to grow it) has been one of the less talked about, yet very significant aspects of his ascension in the NFL.

From a young age, Nacua's combination of inherent intelligence in incessant studying meant he understood everything he was taught, and could transfer ideas to the field. Those are skills that some professionals struggle with, but that Nacua has prized since childhood, and they've only grown with experience and expanding resources at his disposal.

"He just knows when to make moves, when not to make them, how fast to make them," Nacua's former trainer Ross Apo told The Athletic in 2019. "He pretty much just has a professional IQ when it comes to the game. That's the same thing I hear from every coach that calls and asks about him — put him in a room of college or NFL offensive coordinators and try to drill him, and he's going to give you answers to everything."

Apo's prediction came true years later when Nacua started garnering NFL attention at BYU. Nacua was playing every receiver position for the Cougars, along with some running back and wildcat quarterback. Rams regional scout Vito Gonella was among those intrigued by his skill set.

"The fact that he's playing four different positions tells you something about his intelligence, that he's able to handle that whole playbook where they can move him around like a chess piece, so I see that on the field," Gonella told theRams.com. "And then I go talk to (people at the school) and they're like, 'yeah, we can do whatever we want with him because he's really smart… this kid knows the offense inside and out.' So once again, the character is matching the tape, and that's not always the case."

After Gonella spoke highly of Nacua, special assistant to the general manager Andy Sugarman was asked to squeeze a visit to BYU into his schedule. Sugarman told The Athletic that he spent hours breaking down film with Nacua and came away stunned by his depth of knowledge and ability to grasp new concepts.

"He was talking like he was a coach," Sugarman said. "He was teaching (the offense). He knew every player's job, including the linemen."

Sugarman wrote "this guy will transcend quickly," in the Rams' scouting data aggregation program, JAARS.

As we now know, that was an understatement, and Nacua has put in countless hours behind the scenes to make his early success a reality.

Nacua moved to Utah after his father's passing, and when his mom, Penina, was checking out schools for him to attend, she told Hill "all my sons are good, but this is the one." Hill would shortly find out why.

Nacua and his quarterback Jaren Hall, who went on to reunite with Nacua at BYU, lead their middle school team to two-straight state championships, all while learning the high school playbook. They became so advanced that Hill gave them the green light to check into certain plays or individual routes based on pre-snap looks without any coaching oversight.

"I had never seen a kid at that age be able to read the defenses and read the coverages, and he just fully understood everything I was trying to teach," Hill said.

In Nacua's freshman year of high school, they inserted him into Orem's starting lineup. From 2015 to 2018, Nacua set the Utah State records for career receiving yards (5,226) and touchdowns (58) as well as single-season receiving yards (2,336) and touchdowns (26) as a senior. And he did it while only playing in the first half of most games, because the team often led by an insurmountable margin. They won the state championship in 2017 and 2018.

Orem's wide receiver's coach left mid-way through Nacua's final high school season. So, Hill said Nacua took on the responsibility of coaching the wide receivers during practice. His dominance led to being a highly-touted, four-star receiver prospect with a variety of Division I offers. He chose the University of Washington.

As a true freshman, Nacua told Yahoo Sports that he spent Monday nights drawing diagrams with his position coach at Washington, Junior Adams.

"I drew the hashes, where the numbers were at, the route depth, if the route had any conversions," Nacua said. "It felt like sometimes we only went over two plays because I was drawing in so much detail. But it clocked so much easier in my head."

Nacua's time at Washington was cut short due to injuries and the COVID-19 pandemic, but his mental and physical skills were sharpened by the elevated level of competition.

Four years later, when Nacua was drafted to the Rams, he took a similar approach to immersing himself in the new environment. During OTAs and training camp, he put in extra time in the mornings to learn the intricacies of the offense with former passing game coordinator Jake Peetz, Nacua told The Athletic in 2023.

Once the season started, and Nacua had established his place in the receiver rotation, he joined quarterback Matthew Stafford and wide receiver Cooper Kupp in their famous early-morning film sessions.

"The first couple of meetings, I'm like a fly on the wall," Nacua told The Athletic. "Nothing is really being said to me, they're just like, watching the tape (and) talking to each other. Then they're like, 'Oh, Puka, you're in on this rep? This is what we want you to do.' And I'm like, 'Oh, you're talking to me?' I'm so focused the whole time! My ears perk up and I'm like, 'He's talking to me now.'"

At every level, Nacua has taken time to connect with players and coaches through his team's scheme, and it's yielded results.

"He can take that information and translate it to the field," Rams wide receivers coach Eric Yarber told FOX Sports in 2023. "A lot of rookies can't do that."

After the 2020 season, Nacua felt the pull to go back home to Utah, closer to his family. That's when he transferred to BYU for his final two collegiate seasons, and his success inflated.

Right off the bat, Nacua went the entire spring without losing a one-on-one rep, BYU wide receivers coach Fesi Sitake told theRams.com.

"I just remember (BYU cornerbacks coach Jernaro Gilford and me) talking after one of the practices, and he's like, 'we can't guard him,'" Sitake recalled.

"When I hear Puka, aside from just the energy that he has, his charisma, I always think of just 'that's a football player.' He's someone who gets it… (he was a) freak athlete combined with just an unbelievable understanding of the game."

But BYU's offense has a wrinkle: Sitake said they don't have defined roles for their receivers. There's no X, Z or F, no left, right or slot. Every down presents an opportunity to move playmakers to the most advantageous spot for the offense, and Nacua was the beneficiary of that more often than not.

"We just play receiver, and that's harder from the player standpoint because they have to memorize everything as concepts and all the different ways we can dress things up," Sitake said. "... You can see all the different places (Nacua) played, how much we wanted to utilize him, and how much confidence he had to line up anywhere and get the job done."

Nacua was running the full route tree while lining up all over the field. The IQ he'd spent years honing made him the perfect fit for the Cougars' offense, as he displayed his multiplicity. But with that also came more attention for Nacua, wherever he lined up. To combat that, he trained to improve his already excellent ball skills, implementing strategy into his movements.

In 2023, BYU offensive coordinator Aaron Roderick told ESPN that Nacua was the best receiver he'd ever seen in contested catch scenarios. His use of "late hands," often negated defenders' ability to react, and that skill transferred over to the NFL instantly.

Against the Browns in his rookie year, Nacua drew the middle linebacker on a seam route that split the safeties. When Stafford threw it, Nacua said he could feel his defender's eyes on him rather than the ball, so he used "late hands" to avoid a deflection. The textbook throw-and-catch resulted in a 70-yard touchdown.

In Nacua's first season at BYU, his 3.44 yards per route run ranked 6th in the FBS, according to Pro Football Focus. That jumped to 3.52 the next season, ranking third in the FBS. His route efficiency was among the nation's best in an offense where he was asked to do a little bit of everything.

"When you teach a technique or you teach coverage or how you want something done in this concept, literally he hears it and he does it," Sitake said. "... It's not just understanding football and concepts, defensive schemes, it's understanding the position play as well. He's got a great feel, a great understanding of how to attack leverage and how to get in and out of breaks and how to change up tempo."

The Rams liked Nacua's tape, and his evaluations matched what they on the field, so they drafted him in the fifth round of the 2023 NFL Draft. And even after a rookie season that saw Nacua break the NFL rookie record for receptions (105) and receiving yards (1,486), there was still room to improve.

Nacua glued himself to Kupp's hip for the 2024 offseason, at Yarber's request. Their early-morning training sessions were eclectic and testing for Nacua, sometimes resulting in him throwing up on Kupp's lawn. Nacua told ESPN that Kupp is "the mastermind of running routes," and he "was very open and honest with me and where I can improve."

"(With Kupp, I improved) some of the intricacies in some of our quick game routes," Nacua said during training camp. "Talking, understanding leverage and then just timing. There's ability, then there's timing in place where you're going to open up your stride and you're going to get the full length.

"There's going to be times where it's going to feel close quarters and you're going to have to shorten up your stride to be able to cross the defender's face. Not necessarily run different routes, but to be able to fine tune some of the stuff that we continue to do all the time."

Despite missing time due to injury last season, Nacua's improvement showed up in his efficiency, as he led the NFL in yards per route run at 3.23, according to PFF.

With the addition of Davante Adams to the Rams' receiver room ahead of Nacua's third NFL season, he has another chance to expand his intelligence and abilities, learning from one of the game's best. If history serves, Nacua will surely add some tricks to his bag in 2025 as he takes advantage of a new source of knowledge.

"He's just willing to stay humble and learn from all the people he is around," Sitake said, "and that's what I've been most proud of and where I've seen the biggest impact at the next level."