John Mateer’s stat line against South Carolina had enough production to look respectable at first glance. The problem was how much of it came after the game was already slipping away.
Oklahoma’s quarterback finished 26 of 43 for 244 yards and two touchdowns in Saturday’s 42-25 loss to the Gamecocks, and he did it without a turnover. But the fifth-year signal caller, now with 20 starts at OU, never found a steady rhythm early, and that was the part that stood out most.
“We wanted to attack them through the air, but I missed some throws, and I think we came out flat,” Mateer said. “I don’t know why - we had a good week and were confident.”
By the third quarter, the numbers told the real story. Mateer had managed just 36 passing yards on 9-of-17 passing before finally piecing together some completions late, once South Carolina’s defensive backups were on the field. That late surge made the final box score look cleaner than the game actually felt.
He wasn’t much of a factor on the ground, either. Mateer ran 11 times for 29 yards and was sacked three times.
Offensive coordinator Ben Arbuckle called the performance “tentative.”
“Just not pulling the trigger on some things, maybe getting a little too greedy on some things,” Arbuckle said. “We have to be a lot better early to get into a good rhythm of the game.”
That was a sharp turn from what Mateer had done a week earlier at Mississippi State. In Oklahoma’s 23-15 win over the Bulldogs, he completed 22 of 29 passes for 283 yards and two touchdowns while adding 37 rushing yards on 4.1 yards per carry.
Mateer said he felt the difference himself.
“It’s not a normal thing,” Mateer said. “Sometimes it’s the other way around and we’re too aggressive.
I need to watch the film. I was frustrated early, and I felt that too.
I wasn’t just letting it fly and being calculated; I was tentative.”
Through eight games, Mateer has thrown for 1,835 yards, 13 touchdowns and seven interceptions. He has turned the ball over nine times, and Oklahoma sits at 4-4 with Florida, Ole Miss, Texas A&M and Missouri still ahead.
After the loss, Brent Venables said he was “not ready” to address whether Mateer will remain the starting quarterback.
Even with the uncertainty hanging over the position, Mateer said he doesn’t expect the defeat to fracture the locker room.
“I don’t have any doubt that the men in this room will stay together,” Mateer said. “It sucks.
We’re all embarrassed, and it sucks. It is what it is.
As a man, you take it on the chin, but I don’t think the men in this building are just going to fold and quit. We keep fighting, and that’s what we do.”
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Boganowski Sends Oklahoma A Blunt Message After Defensive Collapse
Michael Boganowski had one of the bright spots in Oklahomas 42-25 loss to South Carolina, picking off his first pass as a defensive back in a game where the Sooners needed something, anything, to steady a defense that never really found its footing. Even with that takeaway, the bigger story was the same one that has followed Oklahoma at times this season: too many missed tackles, too many breakdowns, and too many explosive plays allowed when the game was still there to be controlled.
Boganowski did not try to dress it up afterward, acknowledging the poor execution and the standard the Sooners have to get back to before the schedule tightens up again. For Oklahoma, the interception was a personal milestone, but it came in a loss defined by a season-high 27 missed tackles and a defense that could not keep South Carolina from hitting multiple long touchdown passes. The message from one of the young defenders was blunt, and it matched the urgency around a unit that needs a cleaner response soon. [Read more 🡒]
Oklahomas Offense Has Reached A Point Brent Venables Cant Ignore
Oklahomas offense has spent much of this season looking like a unit still searching for its footing, and the latest loss to South Carolina only sharpened the concern. The Sooners have struggled to find any real consistency under Brent Venables and offensive coordinator Ben Arbuckle, with quarterback John Mateer unable to provide the kind of steady production the staff needs as the SEC grind has exposed the groups shortcomings.
The bigger issue now is not just one bad afternoon, but a season-long pattern that has left Oklahoma near the bottom of several offensive categories both in the SEC and nationally. For a program that needs its offense to carry more of the load, the lack of identity has become impossible to overlook, and whatever comes next will have to answer whether this is a fixable issue or a deeper reset heading into the offseason. [Read more 🡒]
OU Fans Now Face A Brutal Offensive Staff Reality
The loss to South Carolina was bad enough on its own, but it also sharpened the conversation around an Oklahoma offense that has struggled to keep pace with the rest of the teams season. Ben Arbuckles unit has ranked poorly nationally, and with the Sooners College Football Playoff hopes effectively gone, every uneven stretch on that side of the ball is going to be viewed through a harsher lens than it was a month ago.
Brent Venables has not confirmed any staff changes, but the speculation is now part of the backdrop as Oklahoma tries to figure out what comes next. There was at least one bright spot in the setback, with junior wide receiver Ivan Carreon turning in a career day and scoring twice, yet even that kind of production was swallowed up by a game that exposed how much work still remains. [Read more 🡒]