From Classroom to Combine Champion

By Kat Cosley Trigg

In the modern NFL, games are decided not only by the talent on the field but by the data teams use to understand it. Every snap produces a stream of information — player speed, route depth, defensive positioning — that front offices increasingly rely on to evaluate strategy and gain an edge.

This year, one of the league’s most coveted analytics honors went to a Rice University senior.

In February, Lucca Ferraz won the 2026 NFL Big Data Bowl, earning the top prize in the league’s annual sports analytics competition. Now in its eighth year, the Big Data Bowl draws students, analysts and aspiring front-office talent from across the country to the league’s combine week, tackling strategic questions using the NFL’s advanced Next Gen Stats tracking data.

Participants are given access to the same type of data used by professional teams: movement information collected through chips embedded in players’ shoulder pads and inside the football. The challenge is to use those numbers to uncover patterns that traditional statistics might miss.

Competing independently, Ferraz, who is double majoring in sport analytics and statistics, developed a defensive framework that introduces a new metric designed to better measure the impact of pass coverage. His model analyzes how defenders influence passing plays — even when they don’t record a pass breakup or interception — capturing the subtle ways defensive coverage can disrupt timing, alter quarterback decisions or reduce passing windows.

In a league where the difference between winning and losing often comes down to small margins, teams increasingly rely on analysts who can identify competitive advantages hidden within that data.

“Sport analytics is fundamentally about winning,” says Scott Powers, assistant professor of sport analytics at Rice. “You’re always trying to find ways to maximize your edge.”

Rice has been ranked the No. 1 best college for sports management in the United States by Niche since 2020.

The Big Data Bowl has quickly become one of the NFL’s most visible talent pipelines. Finalists present their work in front of league executives, scouts and analytics directors during combine week, and several past projects have later appeared as broadcast features during nationally televised games.

Ferraz’s win also reflects Rice’s growing footprint in professional football analytics. Last year, he was part of a team that reached the competition’s finals. Another Rice graduate, Jonah Lubin, was named a 2025 semifinalist and now works full time with the Las Vegas Raiders as a football data science assistant focused on player evaluation.

“This competition is one of the biggest hiring pipelines in professional sports,” Ferraz says. “It’s an incredible opportunity to showcase your work at the highest level.”

With the 2026 title now secured, Ferraz joins a new generation of analysts shaping how the NFL evaluates talent, strategy and performance — where data, more than ever, helps determine who wins on Sunday.

From the Spring 2026 issue of Rice Magazine