Oklahoma’s John Mateer and Isaiah Sategna III may not have cracked the very top of On3’s quarterback-receiver duo rankings, but the case for them is stronger than a No. 10 slot suggests.
J.D. PicKell’s list of the top 10 QB/WR pairings heading into the 2026 season put Ohio State’s Julian Sayin and Jeremiah Smith at No. 1, then shuffled the rest of the field into a group that, as the ranking showed, is still wide open. The Sooners’ tandem of Mateer and Sategna landed at No. 10, but that placement overlooks one of their biggest strengths: they already know how to play together.
That matters in a ranking like this. Of the 10 duos on PicKell’s list, only four have actually shared the field before. Six of the pairs ranked ahead of Oklahoma have yet to complete a pass in a game together, with either the quarterback or the receiver arriving through the transfer portal this offseason.
The other experienced combinations on the list help show why Oklahoma belongs in the conversation. Sayin and Smith were the clear standard, with Smith hauling in 87 catches for 1,243 yards and 12 touchdowns last season.
That production accounted for nearly 35% of Sayin’s passing yardage. Oregon’s Dante Moore and Dakorien Moore checked in at No. 4 after connecting on 34 passes for 497 yards and three touchdowns.
Texas A&M’s Marcel Reed and Mario Craver also had a real body of work together, combining for 917 receiving yards and four touchdowns on 59 catches.
Mateer and Sategna, though, bring their own proof.
The two arrived in Norman last year from different places - Mateer from Washington State and Sategna from Arkansas, where he spent three years without much use - and immediately gave Oklahoma’s passing game a jolt. That was no small thing after the Sooners’ aerial attack had been stuck in the mud in 2024, when completions over 10 yards felt hard to come by.
Sategna finished 2025 as Oklahoma’s leading receiver with 67 catches for 965 yards and eight touchdowns, averaging 14.4 yards per grab thanks to his speed. Mateer was out for one of Sategna’s 13 games, including the Kent State game in which Sategna posted 75 yards and two touchdowns with Michael Hawkins Jr. at quarterback. Even so, Sategna still accounted for about 31% of Mateer’s 2,885 passing yards.
He also had four 100-yard receiving games after doing that just once total in 2024.
Sategna’s breakout earned him first-team AP All-SEC honors and a second-team nod from coaches. He still chose to return to Oklahoma for another season instead of entering the NFL, giving the Sooners one of college football’s most established quarterback-wide receiver pairings back in place.
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