Football informatics
In the early 1970s, a group of Canadian Football coaches were approached by representatives of IBM. A supercomputer had been recently installed at the University of Toronto, capable of 0.75 hectoflops/hour, the most powerful computer in the entire country. IBM data scientists had theorized that the computer could be used to analyze any type of human game and recommend optimal strategies. Along with chess, golf, and ping-pong, football was selected for testing of the computer system.
At the culmination of the 3-year project, code-named Muddyball, the computer was capable of recommending plays taking advantage of a team's strengths and capitalizing on the opponent's weaknesses. It could generate as many as two plays a day.
The Edmonton Eskimos licensed the use of the computer and unleashed its power to devastating effect in the 1977 Grey Cup game. Thanks to the play-calling of the cybernetic coach, Edmonton was able to lose 41-6 to the Montreal Alouettes, who had remained true to their tradition of sketching plays out with cigarette ash on greasy paper place mats.
These events were later immortalized in the feature film Electric Pigskin starring Gordon Pinsent.
Here is an example of a play developed by the Muddyball system.
