Switched has a new home! Huffpost Tech.

Click here to visit the new home of Switched!

Hot on HuffPost Tech:

See More Stories
AOL Tech

Could 'Football Computers' Threaten Coaches Jobs?

by Warren Riddle on September 14, 2009 at 07:45 AM

Sure, watching football is great, but the real fun begins once the games have ended, and the hordes of overweight, middle-aged men, who have never donned pads or laced up cleats, get to play Monday morning quarterback. Anyone can second guess the coach, and sound like an expert doing it, while lamenting wasted plays and missed opportunities.

Two researchers have created a computer model that may bench all of those armchair quarterbacks, though, because the program uses playbooks, statistics, trends, and other factors to determine exactly what play to run, and when specifically to run it. According to Inside Science News Service, statisticians Sharif Melouk and Marcus Perry incorporated "techniques often used to allocate resources in contexts like business and antiterrorist protection efforts" in creating the perfect play-caller.

Melouk told Inside Science News Service, "The offense knows all the different sort of plays they could call for a particular situation, and they're also going to know what all the different types of defenses that the defense could throw at them." With that information, the program chooses the ideal play for each individual situation. It shouldn't be surprising that Melouk and Perry hail from the football-mad University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa. They're probably just preemptively looking for the successor of itinerant coach Nick Saban. After all, a computer can't lie or split town under the cover of darkness. [From: Inside Science News Service/LiveScience]

Tags: football, programming, sports, statistics, top

Add your comments

Please keep your comments relevant to this blog entry. Email addresses are never displayed, but they are required to confirm your comments.

When you enter your name and email address, you'll be sent a link to confirm your comment, and a password. To leave another comment, just use that password.

To create a live link, simply type the URL (including http://) or email address and we will make it a live link for you. You can put up to 3 URLs in your comments. Line breaks and paragraphs are automatically converted — no need to use <p> or <br /> tags.

HuffPost AOL Social News Most Popular