College Football Analytics

[JDjacket]

I know its been brought up in various threads from time to time, but I'm curious as a world renowned engineering and research institute what are we doing to advance any of our sports programs using analytics.

http://www.espn.com/college-footbal...-football-analytics-revolution-just-beginning

This article also touches on the increasing size of staff to handle some of this, so I know we may not be able to increase the staff handling it, but I would hope we could be designing and running programs to do some of this.

The IE department or whatever has those professors who built some computer program to predict the NCAA Tournament. I'm not saying we should be the best at doing this, but we should at least be up there. As most people say the school sometimes doesn't want to put as much money into building a sports program at an academic school, but it's a win-win for both.

Introducing engineering into sports (granted just from common sense most of us can make the connection where it already is a huge part of sports) could open up a door for new majors without branching away from our engineering pedigree.

It's frustrating because there's so much untapped potential that I sometimes feel the school is afraid of embracing.

 

[COJacket]

I know its been brought up in various threads from time to time, but I'm curious as a world renowned engineering and research institute what are we doing to advance any of our sports programs using analytics.

http://www.espn.com/college-footbal...-football-analytics-revolution-just-beginning

This article also touches on the increasing size of staff to handle some of this, so I know we may not be able to increase the staff handling it, but I would hope we could be designing and running programs to do some of this.

The IE department or whatever has those professors who built some computer program to predict the NCAA Tournament. I'm not saying we should be the best at doing this, but we should at least be up there. As most people say the school sometimes doesn't want to put as much money into building a sports program at an academic school, but it's a win-win for both.

Introducing engineering into sports (granted just from common sense most of us can make the connection where it already is a huge part of sports) could open up a door for new majors without branching away from our engineering pedigree.

It's frustrating because there's so much untapped potential that I sometimes feel the school is afraid of embracing.

I have to totally agree with you

 

[Vespidae]

This is a very interesting concept. I'm familiar with some of the latest video technology now being used in sports and guess what ... designed by engineers.

Given the size of the market and it's visibility, I think it would be interesting to look at a Department of Sports Technology. Tech is doing "Gaming" today ... why is sports technology not different?

Tech could be engaged in the integration of video, tablets, big data, etc ... to bring insight to the game(s).

I guess the biggest issue is there is no government funding for this ...

 

[bob4gt]

ISE has a history in football. Tom Landry (Cowboys Head Coach in the 60s) was an IE and was onr of the first to use computers to analyze down and distance data. A BYU quarterback who later played in the pros wrote a thesis and published a paper on the value of the ball at different locations on the field - main conclusion was almost always go for the TD on 4th inside the 10. (Of course Coach Dodd knew that in the 50s!)

Tech ISE has a ton of faculty and graduates working in analytics, and many with sports. Nemhauser and former students did ACC scheduling and MLB scheduling for a while - there was money there. Dave Goldsman is a baseball analytics guy, but mostly does it for fun on his own I think. Seems to me some of those guys could have a grad student or two work with the AA if the AA would support the student. I know I would if I were there.

Bob