Samford athletics is coming off of a record-breaking 2022-23 season after winning 11 Southern Conference championships and numerous individual awards. Zach Mathers, Samford’s assistant athletic director for Sports Performance, and Darin White, Samford’s executive director for the Center for Sports Analytics, credit a large part of this success to Samford’s newest data analytics program, Project SAMson.
Mathers said that Project SAMson was created with two main goals: “to ensure that [Samford has] the best product for our student-athletes, but also to give people from the academic world real-world experience.”
For athletes, the program is an in-depth data analytics study of their performance.–
“We collect data on them every time they’re on the field, every time they’re in the weight room, and we take all that data and analyze it in order to help them be the best version of themselves,” said White.
For students, the program creates ample opportunity for career experience in multiple fields and brings those fields together to make Project SAMson unique.
“[Samford] can pull different people with different backgrounds together, and we all tend to work well together because we’re smaller, we’re more nimble, we get along – which allows us to do some really cool things that you really don’t see being done at other schools,” commented White.
Athletes at Samford benefit from Project SAMson in numerous ways, the most noticeable being their semi-individualized training regimens.
“Instead of just saying ‘Here’s a cookie-cutter Samford football strength conditioning program,’ we can say ‘Here’s some of the things that we want to do differently with you,’” said Mathers.
Mathers is in charge of writing the base strength conditioning program for all 120 Samford football players – Project SAMson allows him to edit that base and create multiple variations suitable for each player according to their position, playtime, previous injuries, or other factors.
“For every layer of individualism that we have, we increase the odds of that player improving,” said Mathers. “Project SAMson’s data analysis allows Samford’s coaching staff to make the essential decisions that benefit everyone.
According to Samford marketing instructor Darin White. the program gives Samford students more than enough real-world experience to be recruited immediately into their dream careers after graduation.
White gave multiple examples of how students associated with Project SAMson have succeeded post-graduation – the most recent being Austin Streitmatter, who worked as Project SAMson’s head last year and now works as a data and analytics associate with the Minnesota Vikings.
“He would not have that job had he not done the work he did with Project SAMson,” said White.
Doug Davis, a current Samford junior working in football analysis, agreed that Project SAMson prepared him for post-graduate life.
“A lot of times, people that want to go into sports leave college with zero sports experience — I’m going to have three years of professional college sports experience,” Davis said.
Project SAMson’s impact has strengthened every area of campus that it is involved in, according to these men. The students involved are hard-working, whether athletes or academics and the benefits this program provides them are undeniable.
“Not only is it good for our students and Samford athletics, but it’s really good for Samford, period,” said White. “We’re putting Samford on a national stage in a whole different way.”
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