It’s Time for Oklahoma to Move On From John Mateer

NORMAN, Okla. - I’ve seen enough.

One week after the Red River high, John Mateer just reminded everybody why this offense still cannot be trusted. Oklahoma lost 21-13 to Kentucky at home, and while the final score will get filed under another frustrating SEC night, the bigger issue is simpler: Mateer is not the answer.

Not for the rest of this season, and not as the bridge into whatever comes next.

He had his moment in Dallas. He made the throws to Isaiah Sategna, managed the game well enough, and got to be the quarterback who helped end the Texas drought. That was real. It was also not enough to paper over everything else.

Against Kentucky, Mateer threw for 270 yards and still walked out as the biggest reason Oklahoma lost a game it had every chance to win. Three turnovers. Two of them in the worst possible moments. A pick-six that ended the night.

That cannot keep happening.

The season-long number is even uglier. Mateer now has 10 total turnovers through six games. He entered Saturday with four interceptions and three lost fumbles. Then he added three more turnovers against Kentucky, all in the second half.

At some point, production stops mattering if the ball keeps hitting the ground or landing in the other team’s hands. Oklahoma can talk about toughness and complementary football all it wants. If the starting quarterback is living on the edge of disaster every week, the ceiling stays exactly where it is.

And that is the part people need to stop soft-selling.

Mateer is not just going through a rough stretch as an otherwise steady starter. He has been one of the least reliable full-time quarterbacks Oklahoma has put out there in a long time. You can dress it up with supporting-cast excuses if you want.

The offensive line has been shaky. The run game has been close to nonexistent. Lloyd Avant had 31 yards. The protection broke down late. All of that is fair. It is also not the whole story. Plenty of quarterbacks deal with bad line play and still avoid torpedoing their own team in the fourth quarter.

That is why the Red River game should be remembered as Mateer’s best night in crimson, not proof that the job is still his without question. He rose up in a rivalry setting, and then immediately followed it by helping throw away a winnable home game against a ranked Kentucky team.

If Brent Venables and Ben Arbuckle can watch that tape and still feel comfortable saying this is the best path forward, they are seeing something the rest of us are not.

Does that mean Whitt Newbauer or Bowe Bentley is definitely the guy? No. Maybe neither one is. That is not the point.

The point is Oklahoma cannot keep running out the same answer and hoping the next opponent is the one that finally makes it look stable. At 3-3, with the season already tilting the wrong way, the Sooners owe themselves a real look at the other options.

Find out what Newbauer is. Find out what Bentley is. Stop assuming Mateer’s experience automatically outweighs the turnovers, the stalled drives, and the constant sense that one bad decision is always nearby.

Sooner fans have been through enough of this version of the offense. The Texas win was fun. It was needed. It was not a free pass for every ugly tape that follows.

Oklahoma needs a spark. Right now, Mateer looks like a dead man walking under center, and the rest of the offense is stuck living with that.

The Sooners haven't seen worse quarterback play from a full-time starter since the John Blake era with Eric Moore and Brandon Daniels, all the way back in the late 1990s.

Moving on does not guarantee anything. Keeping him as the unquestioned answer guarantees more nights like Saturday, when the defense does enough, the yardage looks fine on paper, and the quarterback still finds a way to give the game back.

The John Mateer story has flipped to the last page and should be sealed shut, forever.

Oklahoma has seen that enough. It is time to try somebody else.