
Even if John Mateer doesn’t become the next great Oklahoma quarterback, Brent Venables did this right
Somewhere between watching John Mateer realize the dozens of media members who waited to speak with him in Atlanta were waiting for him and seeing the wry smile after he confessed that he left the lone Red River Rivalry game that he ever attended in the 3rd quarter because it was his high school’s homecoming dance, I saw it.
I saw why Brent Venables went all in on Mateer.
It’s not just that the new Oklahoma quarterback put up big numbers playing against basically a Mountain West schedule in his lone season as a starter. You can woo guys out of the transfer portal who did that. I don’t know what kind of wooing it took to land Mateer. Venables said at SEC Media Days that he had more money elsewhere. Of course, Venables had already poached Mateer’s offensive coordinator at Washington State, Ben Arbuckle, meaning that OU could offer something that no other school could — continuity.
Mateer wouldn’t have had any continuity if he had stayed at Washington State. That’s because his head coach, Jake Dickert, had already left for Wake Forest.
And for what it’s worth, Dickert is still all in on Mateer:
That’s not mincing words.
Dickert developed a certain appreciation for Mateer, who led FBS in quarterback rating during the month of November and accounted for more touchdowns (44) in 2024 than any returning FBS quarterback. It’s why he’s bullish on him becoming the next great transfer quarterback, similar to a former household name in the SEC.
“I’ve always comped him to Bo Nix,” Dickert told SDS earlier in the summer. “Bo Nix, when he was at Auburn, transformed his game when he went to Oregon. That’s what I think you’re gonna see in the next iteration of John.”
The iteration of Mateer that Dickert saw in 3 years at Washington State was one who become the ideal heir apparent to Cam Ward. Once upon a time, Mateer was barely a top-2,000 recruit out of high school. He didn’t even have a Washington State offer until late January during his senior year of high school. Central Arkansas was the initial plan for Mateer. That is, assuming his late official visit to New Mexico didn’t change his mind. It was Dickert who ultimately took a chance on him in 2022.
“We saw skills and traits that have been developed beyond measure,” Dickert said. “But when I knew John Mateer was going to be successful, it was the first practice of fall camp. I’m leaving at 10 o’clock, the lights are out in the stadium, and there’s this player down there going through the plays for tomorrow’s scrimmage. It was John Mateer. Those are the types of things that nobody will see that’s gonna lead to all his success this season.”
If Mateer lives up to what Dickert said, Venables won’t have any sort of in-season quarterback decision to make
You know, like he did multiple times last year.
No, that wasn’t a dig at Venables’ decision to let Dillon Gabriel transfer to Oregon so that the Jackson Arnold era could begin. It was a dig at how Venables made 2 in-game quarterback changes with former blue-chip recruits who were in Year 1 and Year 2 of college. Venables was reluctant to handle the ebbs and flows of underclassmen who were figuring it out, but he didn’t have anyone else on the roster. Hence, why Arnold went from being an OU representative at SEC Media Days to getting benched before halftime of his first SEC game.
Mateer will have the benefit of being a second-year FBS starter who is in Year 4 of college, but like Arnold, he won’t have the benefit of SEC experience until he’s out there. His lone experience starting against Power Conference competition was last year against Texas Tech and Washington, both were wins in which he had success with his legs, but he averaged 180 passing yards and 6.8 yards/pass attempt.
It’ll be interesting to see if Mateer has to change up his style against SEC competition. He was responsible for the 2nd-highest allowed pressure percentage (33.7%) among FBS quarterbacks, but he was also No. 6 in FBS in rushing yards via quarterback scrambles. He had 6 games in which he took at least 3 sacks, but he was tied for No. 1 among FBS quarterbacks with 54 missed tackles forced.
Dickert mentioned that the biggest thing for Mateer will be working through his progressions so that he doesn’t have to put himself in those spots as much. It’s fair to wonder if that’ll be evident in his second season as a starter.
“The (SEC) fronts are gonna be more athletic, better and they’ll just move faster. But me, just playing better quarterback, checking plays at the line of scrimmage and standing in the pocket more and taking my checkdowns is a big thing,” Mateer said in Atlanta. “There might be a learning curve, and that’s fine. But I play against a great defense every day. The learning curve will be shorter because I play against this good defense that’s gonna give me all the looks I’ll need. I bet I’ll figure it out.”
That last sentence was something that Mateer repeated during his time in the main media area. “I bet I’ll figure it out.” Who’s to doubt his confidence? After all, that’s what he’s done at every stage of his career. It’s what Venables is banking on.
In a way, getting the packaged deal of Mateer and Arbuckle locked Venables into having some patience at the position. Of course, patience will only last so far for a coach who had his last name on OU’s lone 2 losing seasons of the 21st century. There’s surely a chance that Mateer’s style will push the defensive-minded coach’s buttons at times. But dipping into the portal and bringing in some sort of game manager wasn’t going to get OU to the places it wants to go. Venables was hired to make OU a yearly Playoff contender who could actually look the part on arrival, which was obviously the biggest shortcoming of his predecessor.
Time will tell if Mateer will be part of that type of turnaround in 2025. No matter what, though, the logic behind Venables’ move checks out.
And if a wry smile awaits Mateer and the Sooners at the end of a bounce-back season, nobody should be surprised.
Connor O'Gara is the senior national columnist for Saturday Down South. He's a member of the Football Writers Association of America. After spending his entire life living in B1G country, he moved to the South in 2015.