Brandon Ally is the Co-Founder of S2 Cognition, a performance evaluation company that is revolutionizing the way professional teams asses prospective players. He is also S2 Cognition’s Chief Business Development Officer and Director of Football. His educational background stands up again the brightest minds in sports. He has a Bachelor’s in Psychology from the University of Tennessee, a PhD in Neuropsychology from Southern Miss, and worked as a Postdoctoral Fellow at Harvard University & Boston University, working in the Geriatric Neuropsychology Laboratory and Alzheimer’s Disease Center, respectively. He also has a background in academia, having served as Assistant Professor of Neurology at Boston University and Vanderbilt University. In addition to his roles at S2 Cognition, he currently serves as Professor of Neurosurgery at the University of Louisville. In this conversation, Brandon talks about…

• His academic background and what a PhD in Neuropsychology encompasses.

• His athletic background at the University of Tennessee.

• S2 Cognition’s origin story & what S2 Cognition does.

• What they used to develop the primary S2 test and what the exam provides NFL teams.

• How things in an athlete’s past influence how well they perform on the S2 test.

• Misconceptions between the S2 test and the Wonderlick exam.

• How his professional knowledge influences his coaching.

• His favorite John Wick movie, and shaming Paul for not having seen it.

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

Show Links

• Follow Brandon on Twitter: @brandonally3

• Follow S2 Cognition on Twitter: @S2Cognition

• To check out S2 Cognition’s website, click here.

• To check out what the S2 Cognition test said about the 2023 NFL Draft QB class, click here.

• To read The Athletic’s piece on the S2 Cognition test, click here.

• To read The Athletic’s piece on how the S2 Cognition test pointed to Brock Purdy’s NFL success, click here.

• Follow @TruMediaSports on Twitter.

Listen here or wherever you get your podcasts: Apple, Spotify, Google, Stitcher, TuneIn.

Hassan Inayatali is a rising senior at the University of Toronto and part of the 2023 Big Data Bowl winning team, along with his partners Aaron White and Daniel Hocevar. Their project, “Between the Lines: How Do We Measure Pressure?” bested over 300 submissions to win the competition. In this conversation, Hassan talks about…

• What data they had access to.

• How they attacked their topic, where the data took them, and what idea had in mind.

• What to say when pitching a coach on their model.

• What they would do if they had more time and access to more data.

• How he got into sports analytics.

• Advice for anyone looking to get into sports analytics.

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

Show Links

• To check out Hassan & his team’s project on how to measure pressure, click here.

• To read the Toronto Sun article about Hassan & his team, click here.

• To read the University of Toronto Engineering News piece on Hassan & his team, click here.

• For more on the NFL’s Big Data Bowl Finalists, click here.

• Follow @TruMediaSports on Twitter.

Listen here or wherever you get your podcasts: Apple, Spotify, Google, Stitcher, TuneIn.

Rodrick David is the founder of Right Step Advising, a company dedicated to helping agents, athletes and schools figure out the next right step for them and their football careers. Before that, he was a scout for the Atlanta Falcons. In this conversation, Rodrik talks about…

• His reaction to Super Bowl LVII & how he watched the game through a scout’s lens

• His career path from college to being an NFL scout

• How data is used in the college scouting process

• What information teams gather at events like the Senior Bowl, NFL Combine, and Pro Days

• What part of a scout’s job is aided by data

• How agents & players are using data in relation to NIL

• What he would do with the No. 1 pick if he was Chicago

• Standouts and sleepers in the 2023 NFL Draft

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

Show Links

• Follow Rodrik on Twitter: @RodrikDavid

• To check out Rodrik on LinkedIn, click here.

• To check out Right Step Advising, click here.

• Follow @TruMediaSports on Twitter.

Listen here or wherever you get your podcasts: Apple, Spotify, Google, Stitcher, TuneIn.

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.

Listen here or wherever you get your podcasts: Apple, Spotify, Google, Stitcher, TuneIn.