Why Oklahoma QB John Mateer Won't Shy Away From Lofty Expectations

The Sooners' new quarterback was elite last year and said Saturday it "would be cool to do that again ... but I'm just trying to win games."

Oklahoma Sooners QB John Mateer scrimmage postgame /

NORMAN — Oklahoma offensive coordinator Ben Arbuckle said Saturday that one of the things he’s learned about being at OU is that there are high expectations.

From the fans, of course. Four generations of winning championships will do that to a fan base.

But Arbuckle is impressed that OU players have their own lofty expectations.

“It's not just the fans at OU, these players expect to win, and they bring that every single day,” Arbuckle said. “They bring it every day in the weight room, in the film room, out on the practice field. The expectations that everyone else has, they have for themselves.”

In Arbuckle’s circle, there are certainly external expectations on new quarterback John Mateer.

At Washington State last season, Mateer led the nation in total touchdowns and ranked No. 4 nationally in total offense. He was, at times, a one-man army, a football gyroscope, a whirling dervish of running and passing and scoring.

It would seem unfair to have the expectation that Mateer can do the same thing for Oklahoma — against arguably college football’s most formidable schedule, loaded with the SEC’s best as well as Michigan — that he did at WSU, which essentially played a Mountain West schedule in 2024.

But here’s the thing: Mateer is at Oklahoma, where any  expectations for elite quarterback play — fair or not — were established a long time before he arrived. The same expectations have been in place since Josh Heupel rewrote all the school passing records in 1999, then came back and won the national championship in 2000.

Jason White felt them. So did Paul Thompson. So did Sam Bradford and Landry Jones and Baker Mayfield and Kyler Murray and Jalen Hurts and Dillon Gabriel. 

And so did Nate Hybl and Rhett Bomar and Trevor Knight and Spencer Rattler and Caleb Williams and Jackson Arnold.

Those expectations are high, and they are heavy.

“I’m not a big expectation guy,” head coach Brent Venables said Saturday after Mateer’s debut to the public in a brief scrimmage to wrap up spring practice. “Because I think it comes from everybody else. Which is fine; that comes with it. But I think if we focus on our standards — we got to get back to the standard of playing the kind of offense that’s been here for a long, long time. That is the standard. So, anything below that would be a disappointment.”

Maybe that’s just semantics: expectation versus standard. But Venables wants Mateer — and each one of his players — to focus on their own process, rather than what they did last year or what somebody did before them.

“You got to take your next step, your first step,” Venables said. “And really excited about, again, how we’ve got the plane off the ground in having a good spring and established how we do what we do, and what we do with the X’s and the O’s, but the passion, the energy, the physical toughness, the detail, the precision, the cohesion, the aggressiveness in the philosophy, the depth in what they do — really loved all of it. So I think that’s where the focus is internally.”

For the record, Mateer won’t shy away from anyone’s expectations.

“I mean, that is the expectation,” he said. “Like, I don’t sit there or wake up every morning and think, ‘Oh, I need this many touchdowns or this many yards.’ Winning games is the only goal. Winning games and doing it for the team; in turn, those things should happen. Because this offense should be pretty explosive.” 

Mateer’s ability to make plays as a runner changes the dynamic for any offense. He ran for 826 yards and 15 touchdowns (4.6 yards per carry) and threw for 3,139 yards and 29 TDs (.646 completion percentage) and was a times unstoppable as he was named a finalist for the Manning Award. His exploits included 197 yards rushing against Texas Tech and 390 passing and 111 rushing against San Jose State. 

He was the only QB in the country with 20 TDs through the air and 10 TDs on the ground.

“Running the ball in the plus-1 run game as well is what gets those extra touchdowns and yardage —sorry, running backs,” Mateer said. “I’m not saying that’s what’s gonna happen this year, but that’s what happened last year. 

“But that would be cool to do that again. It was cool to do it last year. But we’ll see. I’m just trying to win games.”

Arbuckle isn’t making any promises, either. But he sounds confident that Mateer can replicate at least some of what he did last year for the Cougars.

"The biggest thing that we always try to instill in the QB room is football IQ,” Arbuckle said. “And the biggest part of football IQ, No. 1, is learning the offense, right? Well, John's been in it now for 2 1/2 years. … He knows what I'm thinking, he knows where I'm at on plays, and he understands whenever we may be in a bad situation on a play call. He's able to ultimately put us in a better situation just from film study experiences that he's had.” 

Mateer certainly has confidence in his play-caller, and Arbuckle’s confidence in him is reciprocal. It’s that confidence — not some unrealistic expectation — that fuels Mateer to be the next great Sooner QB.

“He’s confident in me, and I know that,” Mateer said. “He doesn’t really have to say it to me for me to know that. But here and there, you know, I’m still young. It helps. But yeah, he’s all about confidence. As a quarterback, you need it. If you’re not confident, you’re hesitant. If you’re hesitant, it’s not gonna work.”

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