Oklahoma Sooners head coach Brent Venables doesn’t seem to be budging on a stance he has that may need to change before it’s too late
The Oklahoma Sooners are on the bye week, and Brent Venables is sticking with John Mateer as his quarterback.
The Oklahoma Sooners are on a bye week after an embarrassing loss to the Georgia Bulldogs. That loss dropped Oklahoma to 2-2. When the Sooners return, they face No. 1 Texas, the top team in the country.
That makes this bye week a big one for OU. The Sooners have a decision to make, or at least one they should be making: whether to stick with John Mateer at quarterback. Mateer has played poorly this season. He may have been even worse than he was last season, when he played through a broken thumb.
We were all told that Mateer would be much better this year now that he’s healthy and has worked on his game. Maybe he did put in the work. It hasn’t shown up on the field. In fact, he’s been much worse.
Against Georgia, Mateer had three catastrophic turnovers, and they blew the game for the Sooners. He fumbled twice, and both fumbles led to points for the Bulldogs. His interception didn’t lead to a score, but it still did damage. Georgia led 28-0 at halftime.
- Passing yards: 883 – Passing touchdowns: 8 – Interceptions: 4 – Completion percentage: 66% – Rushing yards: 76 – Rushing touchdowns: 0
The rushing numbers jump out the most. Mateer ran for eight touchdowns last season, and his legs were a huge part of what made him dangerous. Through four games this season, he hasn’t found the end zone on the ground once. Taken together, the production simply isn’t there. And the turnovers are costing Oklahoma games.
Brent Venables isn’t budging on Mateer
The Sooners needed to decide this week. It appears Sooners coach Brent Venables has made it, and he’s sticking with his quarterback. Venables made his stance clear this week:
“John’s our starting quarterback. He was the starting quarterback on a 10-win team a year ago. The best version of John Machere is really good. There’s no sugarcoating it. He’s got to be more consistent. And the turnovers have been the biggest issue, critical moments. There’s no discounting that. But we do believe he gives us the best chance to win. And our job is to get the best out of him and to help him, again, being a successful A quarterback takes a lot of people around him to be good as well. And so whether that’s protection or the ability to run the football more consistently, we believe in John in every way. The talent, the leader, his investment, who he is every single day, we see it in every— we see it every day in practice. So we’re able to really compare a body of work. And so I’m excited to see him bounce back and he’s had a really good week. Again, those are— again, excuse me, again, I know I’m just conveying words right now. It still takes the ability to go out and execute at a high level and we expect him to do that.”
Brent Venables, Oklahoma Sooners head coach
To be fair, Venables isn’t pretending everything is fine. He acknowledged the turnovers and the lack of consistency head-on. He also put some of the responsibility on the people around Mateer, pointing to protection and the run game. Those are fair points, because no quarterback succeeds on his own.
However, the bottom line is that Venables is betting on, at least, the version of Mateer who led a 10-win team. Oklahoma hasn’t seen that version yet this season. In fact, he’s been worse. The Sooners are sticking with Mateer, and that decision now gets tested against the best team in the country. There’s no softer landing spot to work out the kinks. Venables said himself that the words only go so far. Mateer has to go out and execute at a high level, and that starts against the Longhorns. If Mateer struggles again against Texas, it could be the end of his run as Oklahoma’s starter.
