As a Texas A&M University student, it is pretty hard not to keep in touch with the success of our different sports teams. The unwavering support of the 12th man to show up at football games, no matter if we won or lost the previous week, is truly admirable. It is no surprise that I really expanded my knowledge of football and other sports when I came to college, and I think my engineering brain has a role in it. During my sophomore year, I was introduced to the world of fantasy sports. One of my friends invited us to an A&M hockey game and began introducing us to the world of the National Hockey League and how fantasy hockey works. Later that year, I joined a fantasy football league with some other friends. To say the least, I was intrigued by the strategy behind fantasy sports.

For those unfamiliar with fantasy leagues, you and several of your friends “compete” against each other each week with a team of selected players of different positions from different teams. Based on what point system is set for the league, each of the players on your team gain or lose points throughout their real-life game. For example, a hockey player could get 3 points for making a goal, and a Quarterback could get -2 points for throwing an interception. So, while the selected players on your fantasy team play their real-life game, you gain points versus your friends’ team that total by the end of the week.

Now, where does the engineering mind come into play? The weekly debacle of adjusting your team roster to figure out which players play and which sit on the bench. It is like a big puzzle you have to analyze and figure out to optimize the amount of possible points you can make that week. I found it particularly interesting the difference between hockey and football, the two sports I do fantasy leagues for on the ESPN app, and how football gives you projected points and hockey does not. Do not be deceived though; the projected points typically prove to be a false helping hand, and many tend to not trust those recommendations.

There are several factors that come into play when trying to craft your weekly roster:

• Which team is your player playing against? Is the opposing team particularly good or not?
• Has your player been recently injured and/or on a rough streak? Maybe it is time to sit on the bench for a little bit.
• On the contrary, if your player has been performing really well (especially in a very superstitious sport like hockey), maybe you should keep them playing!
• Should you drop a player that hasn’t been performing well and try to pick up another player that isn’t on anyone’s team?
• And, of course, is that player/team actually playing that week or game?

Now, I will admit this while writing this: I am most definitely not some fantasy sports genius who has perfected a system and is undefeated. That is why I, and many other analytical minds, seem to enjoy fantasy sports. When you adopt one strategy, you sometimes have to shift your strategy to try a different approach for success. It is exciting! It is not like a program or formula where you expect it to work in a certain way, there is still an aspect of life that can throw a wrench into your plans. Not only are you keeping tabs with many players across many teams, but you are able to develop a deeper understanding of your desired sport and watch highlights knowing that player scored you a ton of points that night. So, as you sit in your numerical analysis engineering classes, maybe try to apply some of the optimization techniques to the stats of the players in your fantasy league. After all, fantasy sports is a whole lot of data, and engineers love to analyze it.