Alright, so I was messing around trying to see how many guys from my alma mater, Akron, actually made it to the NFL. It turned into a bit of a rabbit hole, but I figured I’d share what I did.
First off, I started with the obvious: Google. I punched in “Akron players in NFL” and variations of that. Got some lists, but they were usually outdated or incomplete. Annoying!
Next up, I decided to hit up some of the official NFL sites. The NFL’s official site is a pain to navigate sometimes, but I figured they gotta have some player data. I tried searching by college, but it was clunky. It didn’t have a direct filter for “University of Akron”. Strike two.
Then, I remembered a site called *. These guys are usually pretty good with stats. I went there and tried to find a way to filter players by college. Bingo! They actually had a section where you could browse players by college attended.
I went to Pro-Football-Reference, found the college section, scrolled (and scrolled… and scrolled…) down to “Akron”, and clicked on it. Finally, a list!
But…the list was still a bit messy. It showed everyone who EVER played in the NFL and went to Akron, even if it was just for a cup of coffee in training camp. I wanted to know the guys who actually made some noise.
So, I manually started going through the list. I looked at the number of years played, games started, and any notable stats (like Pro Bowl appearances). I started making a little mental note of the guys who had decent careers.
The Real Work Begins: Cleaning the Data
- I opened up a Google Sheet. Yeah, nothing fancy.
- I copied the names from Pro-Football-Reference into the first column.
- Then, I went back to each player’s page and started pulling out key info: years played, positions, teams, and any major accomplishments.
- This took FOREVER. Seriously, it was tedious.
Once I had the data in the spreadsheet, I started sorting it. I sorted by years played to get a sense of who had longevity. Then, I looked at positions to see if there were any trends (lots of O-linemen, maybe?).
Spot Checking and Verification
To make sure my list was accurate, I did some spot-checking. I picked a few names at random and searched for them on other sites to confirm their stats and playing history. Found a couple of minor errors, which I corrected.
Finally, I had a (relatively) clean list of Akron Zips who played in the NFL, with some basic info about their careers.
The Takeaway?
It’s a lot of manual work to get a decent list. No magic bullet, just old-fashioned digging around and data entry. Pro-Football-Reference is a lifesaver, though.
It was just a fun little project. Go Zips!
