Show Notes
American Football is a game played with 11 players on offense competing against 11 players on defense, with a sequence of plays executed as one team attempts to outscore the other, but each discrete play reflects actions on the field by players and off the field by coaches. For example, what is the best spot on the field to complete a pass and not get it intercepted? How do quarterbacks differ with respect to their release points? When should you ice the kicker? These are the questions that we are trying to answer on this special football-themed episode of Stats+Stories.
Mike Lopez serves as Senior Director of data and analytics at the National Football League, and he's held this position since August of 2018, after previously serving as director in the same department. Before this role, Mike worked at Skidmore College as a lecturer, research associate and as an assistant professor.
Adriana Gonzalez Sanchez is pursuing a PhD in business analytics from the University of Cincinnati, with a research focus on discrete data analysis and statistical methodology.
Ryan Elmore is an associate professor in the Department of Business Information and Analytics at the University of Denver's Daniel College of Business. His research interests include statistics and sports, non-parametric statistical methods, and energy-efficient high-performance computing. He currently serves as an associate editor for the Journal of Quantitative Analysis in Sports.
Background in Sports Analytics 2:00 Evolution of Football Data 5:23 2024 Kickoff Rule Changes 8:36 Next Generation Stats and Data Collection 15:28 In-Game Analytics and Coaching Decisions 20:35 Fourth Down Strategy Revolution 24:23 Future of Player Evaluation 27:20 Replay Process Efficiency 28:30 Ryan Elmore and Adriana Gonzalez Sanchez Interview Starts 31:50 Inspiration for the Research 33:23 Play-by-Play Data 37:53 Defining Iced Kicks & Matching Approach 40:33 Causal Inference & “Parallel Universes” Idea 45:05 Strategic Use of Timeouts & Other Situations 51:03 Future Research Directions 57:25
More from Stats + Stories
The federal government generates a lot of data, produced by agencies such as the Bureau of Labor Statistics and the Census Bureau. These data inform the decisions leaders make that shape our lives. Covering these agencies and their statistics is no easy task. A Bloomberg journalist was recognized this year for her excellence in reporting on these data, and that’s the focus of this episode of Stats and Stories with guest Molly Smith.
Jessica G. Myrick (@jessmyrick) is an associate professor of media studies at the Bellisario College of Communications at Penn State University. Her research focuses on the role of emotions in shaping our responses to various types of media messagesMyrick's research has touched on topics ranging from skin cancer prevention campaigns and climate change appeals to the effects of incivility in responses to political Facebook posts and why we watch cat videos, and it has been featured in news outlets around the globe.
There's a lot of concern about how bots and algorithms shape our experiences, both online and off. Increasingly, those concerns are focused on our politics. Can bots fuel political polarization? Can algorithms shape political narratives? A recent study seeks to understand the agenda-building capabilities of social bots in a political context, and that is a focus of this episode of Stats and Stories, with Phillip Arceneaux and Josh Anderson.
During the 2010s, the United States netted just under one million new immigrants each year; between 2022 and 2024, that number was closer to three million. But since the election of Donald Trump, immigration to the U.S. has taken a nosedive, and potentially so has the economic growth of the country. The economic impact of the rise and fall of immigration to the U.S. is a focus of this episode of Stats and Stories, with Tara Watson.
When reporters cover mass shootings news outlets often struggle to find ways to cover the event that won’t inspire others to do the same thing. Something similar follows in the wake of a suicide. Journalists don’t always cover suicides in their communities but when they do one of the concerns is whether that coverage might lead to a spike in suicides after the story is out. The media’s influence on the actions of individuals is a chronic concern for researchers in a number of fields and is a focus of this episode of Stats and Stories with guest Joel Greenhouse