Robyn Ritchie - 2022 NFL Big Data Bowl Champion

Expected Value

Robyn Ritchie, a PhD student at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, is part of the team that won the NFL’s Big Data Bowl this year. This was the fourth annual Big Data Bowl, put on by Mike Lopez and the league’s analytics staff, and the topic this year was special teams, with each team given a set of tracking data and asked to come up with analysis and strategies based on that data. Robyn and her teammates (Brendan Kumagai, Ryker Moreau, Elijah Cavan) bested over 200 contestants with their entry, entitled “Punt Returns: Using the Math to Find the Path” In this conversation, Robyn talks about…

Exactly what data she and her team used

How they approached the contest

What methods and tools they used along the way

Challenges they ran into

Communicating their ideas effectively

Her path to getting a master’s and a PhD in statistics

Why Simon Fraser has produced so many good sports analysts

Her advice for people looking to get into the field

Her work in curling analytics (yes, curling!)

Then, TruMedia’s Sergio De La Espriella joins the show to discuss Paul’s conversation with Robyn.

Show Links

Follow Robyn on Twitter: @RR_SportsStats.

For more on the Big Data Bowl, click here.

To watch the 2022 Big Data Bowl Finals, click here.

To see the Kaggle Robyn referenced in the episode, click here.

For more on the Canadian Statistics Student Conference, click here.

Check out the Winnipeg Free Press’ piece on Robyn by clicking here.

Follow @TruMediaSports on Twitter.

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