American football teams are increasingly using modern statistical tools to give themselves an edge, utilizing mathematicians in the arena of football analytics.
Eric Eager, vice president of research and development at SumerSports, a startup aimed at helping football teams optimize their decision-making processes, will discuss his career of linking football and mathematics from 4:30 to 5:30 p.m. Oct. 11, in the Nebraska Union Auditorium and on Zoom.
Eager earned his Ph.D. in mathematical biology from the University of Nebraska–Lincoln. He previously worked at Pro Football Focus, where he built an industry-leading analytics group. Before making the move to industry, Eager was a professor at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse, publishing 25 papers in math, biology and the scholarship of teaching and learning.
“While at Pro Football Focus, I built simulation models to help teams predict player performances for their particular scheme and usage profiles,” Eager said. “Later on, the NFL put RFID chips in the shoulder pads of players, and that tracking data is able to tell us player movement traits that we previously had to discern from event data. For example, how do linebackers balance the interplay between not biting on play action passes while still being able to stop the run? After years of building player evaluation tools to help teams, media members and gamblers, I am excited to apply what I’ve learned to building the best teams the salary cap can buy.”
Enhanced by mathematical approaches to understanding the game, the practice of football analytics has coincided with an increase in not only popularity for the game but also in gaming offering for fans, Eager said. Using these mathematical models, SumerSports aims to make NFL teams more efficient in their roster-building decisions.
This Department of Mathematics talk is co-sponsored by the National Science Foundation’s STEM CONNECT grant and the Simons Foundation. The University of Nebraska-Lincoln community is welcome to attend.
