Minnesota Gophers at 2022 NFL Scouting Combine

While Andries, who was one of 10 finalists for the 2016 Mr. Football Award, is certainly talented enough on the field to be here at the combine, he might also be among the most interesting prospects from an educational standpoint, too.

He majored in applied business analytics at Minnesota, and you aren’t alone if you have no idea what that is.

Vikings.com asked exactly what those studies entail.

“I’ll take you through the whole story. So, coming out of high school, I wanted to be an actuary, they calculate insurance premiums and calculate risk or anything. That was my plan coming out of high school,” Andries said. “Then I have this opportunity [at the combine] so I put that on hold. I had to get a master’s [degree] so I went into applied business analytics. An actuary uses stats, finance, theoretical math. I really liked that, but it’s just in insurance.

“So I’m like, ‘OK, what if I want to broaden my stats, broaden my coding, all that stuff, in other business?’ So I’m going to try to get into a master’s that I know would already help me in different industries. I went into applied business analytics and learned a lot more coding, a lot more compiled data sets and worked with them. Just everything like that,” Andries added. “I’ve been telling some coaches, ‘Honestly, I’d really love to get into sports analytics maybe after I’m done here.’ That would be something I love, honestly, both on the statistics side and the sports side. The trend you see right now is that a couple companies have a monopoly on sports analytics, and it would be fun to see some competition.”