Can someone explain RPS to me?

Submitted by littlebrownjug on

I've seen the site search function to try to find an explanation of the statistic RPS in Brian's UFR, but I have been unsuccessful. Can someone explain what the statistic measures?

Thanks.

pasadenablue

October 25th, 2013 at 4:44 PM ^

RPS stands for Rock Paper Scissors.

 

Much like football, every play in RPS has a weakness.

 

Being able to exploit said weakness is plus RPS for you.  It's like pulling rock when your opponent lays down paper or throwing a screen pass against a blitz.

 

Having your own weakness exploited is negative RPS.  Think of pulling scissors when your opponent lays down rock or sending the house against four verts.

Blazefire

October 25th, 2013 at 4:44 PM ^

An RPS +1 Means a play was just the right call by the O or D coordinator to take advantage of the opposing team's O or D. A +2 or +3 means they did that really well.

An RPS -1 -2 or -3 means M's coaches made a terrible play call that was just what the opposing coordinator wanted them to do. 

stephenrjking

October 25th, 2013 at 6:28 PM ^

Not exactly right. RPS does not evaluate whether or not the playcall was "good" or "terrible," just that on that particular play the combination of playcalls resulted in a significant advantage for one team. That's why it's "rock, paper, scissors"--because there is often an element of randomness.

In a normal game coaches are going to win some calls and lose some calls. The only time one should worry is if a coach is seriously negative in RPS after a game, because that means they have been consistently beaten in calls.

JeepinBen

October 25th, 2013 at 4:46 PM ^

Think early tecmo bowl - remember how there was 1 play on the offense that could get stopped by 1 play on the defense? Pretty much "how well does our coordinator's playcall take advantage of the other coordinator's playcall?

Sometimes this is our coordinator doing something good (or bad) and sometimes it's the other guy doing something good (or bad).

Mr. Yost

October 26th, 2013 at 8:12 AM ^

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#noplayclock

taistreetsmyhero

October 25th, 2013 at 4:55 PM ^

rock paper scissors is largely luck. is Brian trying to explain what plays in the game were bad/good luck? or is a positive RPS play trying to say that, when we were on defense, we could tell what they were going to do, and did a good job of calling the correct play to defend it?

Blazefire

October 25th, 2013 at 5:09 PM ^

RPS is a way of controlling player point values.

If a D has been blitzing all day, you don't wanna give a reciever +3 every time a screen goes for 30 yards.An RPS call in this case demonstrates that the O Coordinator recognized that a blitz was likely and called the appropriate play to make them pay for their blitzing.

Occasoinally, especially early, an RPS can be luck if a team is doing something they haven't shown a lot of in the past.  If a team enters a game playing a very soft D that they've not run before, kind of like our ND defense was, the O coordinator might get a "luck" RPS for an early short field throw. However, as the D keeps doing that, more and more of those plays can be attributed to the coordinator putting the offense in the right position to take advantage.

MaizeAndBlueWahoo

October 25th, 2013 at 5:14 PM ^

I believe when Brian originated RPS, it was a way to explain why a play got destroyed (or did really well) when a player who looked responsible didn't actually do anything wrong (or right.)  RPS is added up only so that if they're really big numbers, we can point to the brilliance or incompetence of a coordinator; small numbers are chalked up to the roll of the dice.

LSAClassOf2000

October 25th, 2013 at 5:53 PM ^

Seth also wrote a little about this in a Michigan Museday early last year - LINK. He also provided an interesting application of it for the 2011 Ohio State game, although the piece itself is from April 2012 - that one is HERE.

 

Koop

October 6th, 2022 at 5:30 PM ^

I just wanted to say that not only do I appreciate this thread--I too had no idea that RPS stood for Rock Paper Scissors--but also that RPS is subject to game theory, about which my smart-aleck Michigan engineering son never tires of reminding me:

https://blogs.cornell.edu/info2040/2019/09/24/everyday-game-theory-analyzing-rock-paper-scissors/

Oh, well, that, and as a matter of simple human psychology, it's easiest to choose "Rock" because that's where your hand begins at the beginning of the game. So, to win RPS, choose Paper until your opponent shows a glimmer of recognition of what's happening, and then shift to Rock.