This data project was commissioned by Conor McQuiston, the director of football analytics for the USC Trojans, so his department has more room to test out gameplans and ideas for the Trojans. (Image /Dall-E)
Every football game generates thousands of pieces of data, from tackles and touchdowns to formations and penalties. Turning that information into insights, however, is a challenge. The USC Trojans have been one of the many college football teams using data to their advantage, but the amount of information they have access to could prove overwhelming.
To help them make better use of that data, a group of students and recently graduated alumni from the analytics master’s program within the Daniel J. Epstein Department of Industrial & Systems Engineering (ISE) at the USC Viterbi School of Engineering is building a database with play-level results from thousands of FBS games. The students are supervised by Bruce Wilcox, an associate professor of industrial and systems engineering practice at USC Viterbi.
Their goal is to organize years of college football data into a searchable data warehouse that will help the Trojans analyze trends, test ideas and prepare for opponents more efficiently.
