Urschel has bachelor's and master's degrees (both from Penn State) and a PhD (from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology), all in mathematics.

He served a three-year term on the College Football Playoff selection committee which began in the spring of 2020,[5] and is an assistant professor at the Department of Mathematics of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

[14][15] The Baltimore Sun reported that the JAMA study on the prevalence of chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) in deceased players was a factor in Urschel's decision.

He was appointed to the College Football Playoff selection committee on January 22, 2020, serving a three-year term which began in the spring of that year.

While doing his master's at Penn State, Urschel was involved in teaching vector calculus, trigonometry and analytic geometry, and introduction to econometrics.

It includes "a cascadic multigrid algorithm for fast computation of the Fiedler vector of a graph Laplacian, namely, the eigenvector corresponding to the second smallest eigenvalue.

"[21] Urschel began a Ph.D. in mathematics at Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2016,[22] focusing on spectral graph theory, numerical linear algebra, and machine learning.

His PhD thesis on Graphs, Principal Minors, and Eigenvalue Problems was completed in 2021 under Michel Goemans at MIT.

[36][37] Urschel competes in competitive online chess on Chess.com, and he has commentated for Chess.com's BlitzChamps event, a rapid tournament for NFL players.