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Huskers Joining the Stats Revolution


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This seems to be the trend among colleges. A friend of mine was offered by a couple large schools before he accepted an analytics job in the NFL. The players on the team better get used to analytics if they plan on playing in the NFL.

 

It's not like they have to do anything other than wear some fancy equipment sometimes. I kinda doubt a coach is gonna go up and tell them that the reason they're making any particular decision is based on what a statistician told them. And none of their decisions are going to be based solely on statistics, anyhow.

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I am happy to see an emphasis in this area, but Zeleny seems inexperienced to be the Director. Is seems he has no actual work experience, BS in 2010, and a PhD in 2015. I would like to have a few PhDs on staff, but the director should be someone with experience.

 

He did his dissertation on the weight lifting data, and it's unlikely he didn't do internship(s) while getting his PhD. And sports statistics was his advisor's specialty so he knows what he's doing.

 

The other thing is... people with PhDs in statistics don't usually do entry level jobs. So wherever they go first they haven't had work experience other than internships and assistantships. I realize this is Nebraska athletics so it's not just any job, but companies that hire PhDs in stats are mostly big, wealthy corporations. Additionally, people who've been working several years will potentially already have out of date knowledge with this stuff.

 

The only possibly better alternative I see to this hire is getting someone high up on one of the NFL staffs that does this, but "The NFL is getting there" doesn't exactly give me a lot of confidence that those people would be better.

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I work with warranty, reliability, customer satisfaction data in the automotive industry, and we hire many PhDs in statistics, computer science and engineering to analyze data. While new PhDs have great knowledge in a narrow area, they do not have broad overall knowledge. I cannot imagine a new PhD with no working experience setting up a department, creating strategy, and hiring people with different backgrounds to coordinate an effort in this area. How many people will be in this department?

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He worked for Madonna Rehabilitation Hospital as a Data Analyst along with the Nebraska Athletic Performance Lab as an Analyst. My guess is that they were impressed with what he knew that they wanted to keep him here full time and made this job for him.

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I hope the department is staffed with enough people to analyze our opponents to death. Give the coaches the best information on the opponents tendencies based on down, distance, score and time remaining. Analyze thousands of high school and Juco to pick the best potential. I really like the old days of recruiting OL base on bone structure, then adding weight. Look to change a recruit's position based on body type and speed. And keep it secret. I never liked ho Epley taught his system to our competition.

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I hope the department is staffed with enough people to analyze our opponents to death. Give the coaches the best information on the opponents tendencies based on down, distance, score and time remaining. Analyze thousands of high school and Juco to pick the best potential. I really like the old days of recruiting OL base on bone structure, then adding weight. Look to change a recruit's position based on body type and speed. And keep it secret. I never liked ho Epley taught his system to our competition.

Pretty sure that is not what this guy will be doing. All that stuff is already being done.

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Not new

 

North Dallas Forty (1979) based on Dallas Cowboys

 

 

 

The Bulls play for an iconic coach (Spradlin) who turns a blind eye to anything that his players may be doing off the field or anything that his assistant coaches and trainers condone to keep those players in the game. The Coach is focused on player "tendencies", a quantitative measurement of their performance, and seems less concerned about the human aspect of the game and the players.

The most ironic scene in the movie is when Nick Nolte's character get called into the head coaches office. The head coach is at his desk at a Mac computer. He goes through several pages of data and then stops and points to the screen and says "That's your problem right there, you are not a team player."

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  • 3 weeks later...
  • 2 weeks later...

So perhaps not quite as new as it first seemed...

It turns out Tucker Zeleny, recently hired by Nebraska as director of sports analytics and data analysis, worked part-time for NU last season "under a different coaching staff," reports Jon Solomon of cbssports.com.

Bo Pelini's staff? Remind me to flesh out that information.

"Anytime you can get data like that, there are so many things you can do," Stewart said. "How many times did a team do something out of a certain formation? Does a quarterback throw better to the right or left? Which hash plays does a team like?

"There is so much more you can do that guys like myself, who have been coaching for 20-plus years, used to do on a piece of paper."

Sounds like progress.


LJS

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