As the New England Patriots and the Los Angeles Rams head to the Super Bowl, a physicist and an athletic trainer sat down to talk about the physics of the game and the science of concussions.

This is the first episode of A Smarter U, a University of Lynchburg podcast featuring University of Lynchburg professors talking about current events and other items of interest.

Episode 1 features Dr. John Eric Goff, a well known sports physicist who has provided commentary in podcasts, articles, and TV appearances around the world, and Dr. Tom Bowman, an athletic training professor who is working on a National Football League-funded study on concussion treatment. Justin Cummings ’19, a communication studies major working for University Communications and Marketing, hosted and produced the episode.

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Transcript: A Smarter U, Episode 1

Transcript prepared by Annabelle Nagy ’22

Justin Cummings - Welcome to a smarter you, a University of Lynchburg podcast! With the Super Bowl right around the corner, today we will be discussing football from a different point of view. I’m Justin Cummings and today I am joined by professor of physics, Eric Goff.

Eric Goff - Hey Justin. How are you?

Justin - And professor of athletic training, Dr. Tom Bowman.

Tom Bowman - Hey Justin. Thanks for having me.

Justin - Thank you guys for being here today. So, the Super Bowl has officially been set with the Rams and the Patriots. So, before we get into that, before we get into the Super Bowl itself, how has your research crossed paths with football and what led you to look at that specifically?

Eric - So, this is Eric here, and I have done a lot of research with soccer balls, which the rest of the world calls football. And I have always examined the World Cup footballs for the last dozen or so years and the interest with football came about two and a half years ago when StarTalk launched “Playing with Science” and I’ve been on that show ever since the very beginning and we’ve done all kinds of different sports from skating to baseball to Tour de France, soccer, and we’ve even done golf and football. And then two years ago partnering with “Playing with Science,” “Tune In” and the NFL had me start appearing regularly on Sundays to do play analysis. So, for the past two seasons I’ve been analyzing a play from the NFL, pulling out the physics and doing some calculations. Trying to elucidate what’s going on in the field in some of the more fascinating plays from the NFL in the past two seasons.

Justin - Awesome. Tom, what about you?

Tom - So, the majority of my work is focused on the sport of men’s lacrosse because we don’t sponsor football here at the University. When we do work in lacrosse, we always find ourselves comparing to football because, although lacrosse is the fastest growing sport in the world, football is king in America and that is probably the most popular sport. So, I’ve done some work on how to impact biomechanics with looking at what do head impacts look and feel like when our lacrosse and soccer players are on the field and we’ve compared those to some of the findings in football. And, I’ve also looked at protective equipment,