Photo by Erin Nelson.
Samford wide receiver Montrell Washington enters the weight rep for the speed bench using Project SAMson, a new technology that monitors a variety of weight machine workouts for every Samford athlete, during morning workouts at the field house at Samford University.
A new initiative at Samford University aims to combine the latest in sports analytics and technology with the school’s athletic teams to both improve Samford student-athletes as well as offer real-world experience to students hoping to work on the health care side of sports.
Project SAMson, launched in 2021, uses technology to collect highly-specific data about workouts, performances and more, allowing Samford coaches to use that data to better train and take care of student-athletes, and allowing students to gain real-world experience in learning how to track, assemble and use this data. Learning those skills could help them land front-office jobs across professional sports, said Darin White, director of the Center for Sports Analytics.
“Analytics and data is really impacting sports big time,” White said.
The Center for Sports Analytics is working with teams such as Birmingham Legion FC to allow students to take a deeper dive into statistics for use on the field. The center has also worked with the Los Angeles Dodgers and New Orleans Saints, which partnered with students who concentrated on the business side of sports. The Dodgers allowed a group of students to present revenue generator findings in 2021.
This initiative is focused on the health care side of sports, and students learn to leverage the data that is collected to improve the lives of athletes on and off the field. Data will help determine when athletes should return to play following an injury, create more specific strength and conditioning plans, reduce injury risk and more.
Cameras are now affixed to equipment in the weight room at the university, tracking performances, feeding information back to coaches such as how fast a player completed a rep, the velocity of the workout and more. Workouts can be adjusted as needed for each athlete, said Zach Mathers, director of strength and conditioning for Samford’s football team.
Data is used to create player profiles, instituting goals for each player, and is even tracked on game day. Players wear vests that track their every move, with thousands and thousands of lines of data being sent to coaches. All of the data helps coaches and trainers create individual programs for players instead of using a “cookie cutter” program for each athlete, Mathers said.
“We’re able to really look at how to design practice,” Mathers said.
The football team is buying into the program as student-athletes see the connection between the data that is collected during workouts and games and the improvements that are possible for them, Mathers said. The players want to know their top speed, and they’ll let their teammates know, too, he said.
“It’s created a sense of competition among them,” Mathers said.
He also hopes the data is successful in preventing injuries and helping those who do get hurt bounce back more quickly, he said.
With a full offseason set to follow the 2021-22 season, Mathers said he’s excited to spend more time with the program, as the offseason leading up to this past season was only one month, due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Beyond the new technology, Mathers said athletics got a boost when the university replaced everything in the weight room with the exception of the actual weights.
While Mathers oversees football, he said each sport uses Project SAMson and has a roughly similar setup, though some technology is different for Olympic sports, he said.
For more information on Project SAMson, visit samford.edu/programs/project-samson.
