Wharton Sports Research Journal

SET: Spatial Edge Technique - A Framework to Evaluate Edge Setters

Viren Bhatia, Smit Bajaj

Defensive plays on the football field require the effort of 11 players. However, defensive statistics only credit one or two defenders for the play’s end result (sack, tackle, interception, etc.).

Our project focused on the off-ball contributions of the oft-ignored nine or ten others. In particular, we focused on a vital skill to stop the run — setting the edge.

Using a Novel Metric of Expected Points Above Average (EPAA) Versus Salary to Assess 2023 National Football League Kicker Value

Jayan Gandhi

In the National Football League (NFL), team salary caps mean money spent on players on one position reduces the ability to spend resources on others. Salary cap hits for kickers in 2023 ranged from under $1M to almost $6M, with cash salaries exhibiting an even wider range (<$1M to >$9M).

This paper describes a new, up-to-date metric, expected points above average (EPAA), that incorporates significant weather-related factors in addition to kick distance to evaluate kicker performance.

Understanding the relationship between mental health literacy and grit in a sample of high school female athletes

Lisa Hone

A survey was conducted with 48 female participants from a rural high school in Utah to determine the correlation between mental health literacy and grit. Each participant completed the modified Multicomponent Mental Health Literacy Measure (MMHLM), shortened Grit-S scale, challenge and commitment constructs from the Mental Toughness Questionnaire 48-item (MTQ48), and additional questions about their views of elite athletes and mental health.

No statistically significant correlations were reported between MHL and grit for female athletes.

The Sharpe Ratio and Hitter Evaluation: A New Application of Modern Portfolio Theory

Chad Knight

When evaluating hitters, it may be very challenging or nearly impossible to consistently predict the future returns (total bases accumulated) of individual hitters due to a variety of uncontrollable random variables.

For this reason, I suggest we should shift our focus towards trying to identify hitters with minimal volatility associated with their skillset in an effort to find hitters with the highest Sharpe Ratio.

Analysis of Success Probabilities in Field Hockey with Machine Learning

Jethro R. Lee, Eric Gerber

The main goal of this project is to use modern machine-learning techniques to analyze field hockey player performance. Field hockey is a relatively heretofore unexplored application, and there would be a great benefit in building a model to predict players’ ability to score under different conditions.

We have scraped public data from Northeastern’s 2023 field hockey season, and implemented a prototype mixed effects logistic regression model with both glmer [2] and RStan [6].

High value football transfers: a win or loss? Correlation of high value football transfers, with their subsequent performances

Shiv Mittal

The study is based on the correlation of high value football transfers, and the change in market value of those transfers for their new clubs.

Analyzing pre covid data, from seasons 2017/18 to 19/20, a comparison has been made for the change in market value of the top 10 valued transfers, for goalkeepers, defenders, midfielders, attackers over the course of 2 years from their transfer.

Exploring the Evolution of the NFL Draft Pick Trade Market Over Time

Ari Nathanson

This paper investigates changes and trends in the market for National Football League draft picks over the past 40 years. This period has seen significant advancements in the way NFL franchises approach the draft, including the Jimmy Johnson trade value chart, first employed by the Dallas Cowboys in the 1990s. Still, many (including Massey and Thaler) argue that teams continue to significantly overvalue early draft picks.

This paper uses a Weibull distribution to model the market value of picks based on their position and year.

Evaluating the Impact of Special Teams on Winning

Ethan Seung, Matthew Ladden

This paper evaluates the per-play impact of special teams on the winning percentage of NFL teams compared to offense and defense. Employing data from the 1999-2022 NFL seasons in the nflfastR database, we developed a new calculation for Expected Points Added (EPA) to accurately assess the  contribution of special teams plays.

This methodology allowed us to create our Special Teams Performance Index (STPI), a composite metric that consolidates the performance of all special teams units on a team.

Quantifying NFL Quarterback Aggressiveness Using aDOT Over Expected (AYOE)

Amrit Vignesh

The quarterback of a football team is typically described to be the leader of an offense as their performance and playstyle can highly impact the characteristics of an offense in comparison to other positions.

Using an XGBoost model with a dataset split into training data from the 2014 to 2020 NFL season and test data from the 2021 to 2023 season for an approximate 70:30 split, the aggressiveness of a quarterback was quantified using the amount of air yards they generate per pass attempt compared to their
expected amount influenced by the situational and system factors described previously.

Analyzing Force in Tackling with the Creation of the Force Over Expected Metric

Owen Yoo, Ben Weber, Eliana Detata

Given the access to valuable play-by-play data through the 2024 Big Data Bowl, we decided to investigate the force generated by tackles. We hypothesized that the force of the tackle is meaningful in tackling success and sought to quantify it accurately.

By modeling this metric, which we will refer to as “force generated at the spot of the tackle” against an array of potentially significant variables, we wanted to create an expected force metric that could be compared to the actual force generated on a specific play. From experimentation and analysis, we hoped to generate actionable insights and inspire further research into the relationship between force and tackling in the NFL.

Analyzing Leicester City's 2015/16 Premier League Victory

Ethan Lu, Nassef Sawiris, Dustin Liu, Matteo Musicco

The fairytale of Leicester City winning the English Premier League in 2015/16 has been well covered. From beginning the season with odds of 5000-1 to win the league; uncovering hidden gems of N’Golo Kante and Riyad Mahrez; the incredible form of Jamie Vardy; to the unique strategy they played compared to their competitors, there were many storylines and explanations that resonated within the soccer community.