The Oklahoma Sooners' Rock Paper Scissors touchdown celebration didn't start as a celebration. It started as a way to assign laundry duty.
During summer training camp, players needed a fair way to decide who handled chores. Someone suggested Rock Paper Scissors. It worked. The games got competitive fast — football players are like that — and by the time the season started, the habit had migrated from chores to touchdowns. Score a touchdown, play a quick match in the end zone with whoever is closest. The celebration became the ritual.
The first documented game during a real match came in the season opener against Florida Atlantic, a 63-14 win. Quarterback Kyler Murray connected with Marquise Brown for a second-quarter touchdown. In the end zone, Murray threw Scissors and Brown threw Paper. Murray won. The team won by 49 points. The RPS game still got camera time.
It continued from there. Brown scored on a 58-yard play and played Myles Tease in the end zone. Murray scored from 10 yards out and challenged Brown again, this time losing when Brown's Scissors beat his Paper. The results accumulated alongside the touchdowns, and by mid-season the celebration had become a signature.
What made it spread was the purity of the format in context. Post-touchdown celebrations are often choreographed, rehearsed, and designed for cameras. The Sooners' version was genuinely spontaneous — whoever you were near, whatever happened next, one throw each. The result was real and immediate. You couldn't rehearse who wins a Rock Paper Scissors game. That authenticity was visible.
Other teams noticed. Clemson's Hunter Renfrow beat Christian Wilkins in a sideline match. NFL players adopted it: Robert Woods and Todd Gurley used it after a Rams opening score. Odell Beckham Jr. and Saquon Barkley were spotted playing on the Giants bench during preseason. High school teams copied it. The format moved faster than most celebrations do because it required nothing except two people and three gestures, which is always the case with Rock Paper Scissors.
Marquise Brown said later that it had been his most-played childhood game, and that it added something real to team life. Players use it now to decide who covers a meal, who gets the last seat on a bus, who handles whatever small thing needs deciding. The celebration was the visible part. The daily utility was the foundation that made it stick.