THIBODAUX, La. — John Mateer always knew this would happen.
He may have been the No. 124-ranked quarterback in the 2022 recruiting class and a Central Arkansas commit until finally drawing a pair of FBS offers after his final season of high school football, but Mateer always believed he would be one of the premier quarterbacks in college football.
It’s just the Oklahoma part of his path that came as a surprise.
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“It’s been a good one, it’s been a lot of fun,” Mateer said of his journey while serving as a counselor at the Manning Academy. “This is what I always wanted. I always believed it would happen. It’s surreal. But it’s not the craziest thing ever. Being at Oklahoma and how that happened is crazy.”
Mateer emerged as one of the top quarterbacks in college football for Washington State. A mostly unknown successor to Cam Ward, Mateer exploded into the national consciousness with a 3,139-yard, 29-touchdown season that also included 826 yards rushing and 15 touchdowns.
He was appointment viewing for the waning embers of Pac-12 After Dark.
That also meant he would be one of the most popular players in the transfer portal if he chose to enter it.
And Washington State made a strong push to get him to stay. He “loved it” in Pullman.
But the NIL money kept going up. Then his offensive coordinator, Ben Arbuckle, left for a job as Oklahoma’s offensive coordinator. That’s the move, even as Mateer continued to battle internally about whether to enter the portal during what he described as a “weird time,” that ultimately pushed Mateer to Norman.
“Same offensive coordinator, close to home,” Mateer said. “It all came together really well. It was a no-brainer.”
Not that Oklahoma didn’t have competition in the transfer portal, where Mateer ranked as the No. 6 overall player in the transfer portal for the 2024-25 cycle according to 247Sports.
Mateer scheduled a trip to see North Carolina and Bill Belichick shortly after the six-time Super Bowl champion head coach took the job in Chapel Hill. It was supposed to take place after Mateer’s visit to Oklahoma. But that never happened with Mateer calling the North Carolina flirtation a “you never know what’s going to happen” backup plan.
The other school that really went after Mateer was Miami.
“My god, they did,” Mateer said. “Yeah, they fuc—– did.”
Mateer, who pulled in “record-setting” NIL contract at around the $3 million range, never did really give the Hurricanes much consideration, however.
The reason why? Ward.
Mateer didn’t want to follow the eventual No. 1 overall pick from Washington State to the portal and then to Miami. He wanted to create his own path.
“I didn’t want to go to the same place he did (and then the) same place he did,” Mateer said. “They could offer me a lot, but I couldn’t have gone just because of that.”
Mateer and Ward remain friends. But those comparisons have pretty much stopped.
Now the gunslinger from Texas is being compared to Baker Mayfield, a former Sooners Heisman Trophy winner he shares a striking physical comparison to given both are 6-feet-1 and around 215 pounds.
As for what Mateer expects in his first season with the Sooners, he said it should be a lot of the same. He’s in the same system with the same play caller. The pillars of a top 10 Washington State offense from last season, just with different pieces around them.
“(We use) a lot of tempo and (do) a lot of different things,” Mateer said. “We’re going to throw a lot at you, and now we have players to throw even more at you now.”
Mateer knows he’s coming to Norman following a disappointing 6-7 season for the Sooners in their SEC debut.
He expects to help change that in Year 2.
“Last year, I wouldn’t say an anomaly, but it’s not normal for Oklahoma,” Mateer said, “Coming into the SEC we didn’t have a good successful Year 1, but I think next year is going to be just fine.”
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