If Oklahoma needed a reality check, Saturday delivered it in brutal fashion. The Sooners’ 41-13 loss to No. 2 Georgia didn’t just expose a bad afternoon - it put the quarterback situation front and center, and Brent Venables said after the game that the staff even talked about making a change.
“It was something we discussed, but it's a conversation where you'll look at everything in how to get better,” Venables said.
That conversation came after John Mateer put together another ugly outing, one that was uglier than the final stat line suggests. His numbers - 231 yards, two touchdowns and an interception - were padded by garbage time, but the damage had already been done. By then, Georgia had turned the game into a runaway.
The turning point came in the second quarter, when Oklahoma had the ball at the Georgia 2-yard line. Mateer rolled out to pass, loaded up to throw and lost the ball. Georgia scooped it up and raced 85 yards the other way for a touchdown, a swing that felt like 14 points in an instant.
The next possession brought more trouble. Mateer had a clean pocket, but held the ball until pressure closed in, then forced a throw into heavy coverage. The pass was underthrown and picked off by KJ Bolden.
Oklahoma’s defense briefly tried to clean up the mess, forcing a three-and-out. But Mateer gave Georgia another gift on the very next drive, fumbling on fourth-and-1 and handing the Bulldogs the ball at the Oklahoma 11-yard line. Two plays later, Georgia was back in the end zone, and the rest of the afternoon was basically over.
This wasn’t an isolated collapse, either. Mateer has now made the kind of back-breaking mistakes that have defined both of Oklahoma’s losses.
Against Michigan in Ann Arbor, he threw an ill-advised interception that set the Wolverines up with first-and-goal inside the 10-yard line. Michigan scored the game-winning touchdown two plays later.
The problem for Oklahoma is that Mateer hasn’t just been inconsistent. He’s been catastrophically costly in critical moments, and there haven’t been enough big plays to offset the mistakes. That’s a dangerous combination for a team already sitting on two losses.
The Sooners also aren’t getting enough help on the ground. They came into Saturday averaging 110.3 rushing yards per game, which ranked 15th in the SEC, and that number took another hit after they managed just 65 rushing yards against Georgia. Lloyd Avant led the way with 23 yards, and Mateer’s nine-yard run was the longest of the day.
That kind of production won’t get the job done when the passing game is this shaky. And for Oklahoma, the frustrating part is that this has become a familiar issue.
The Sooners ranked 13th in the conference last season with 118.5 rushing yards per game, and Mateer accounted for a big share of that. Offensive coordinator Ben Arbuckle had the offseason to fix it, but there hasn’t been real progress.
If anything, the run game has gone backward.
Oklahoma now has two weeks before facing No. 1 Texas in Dallas, and the Sooners need a lot more than a cleaner afternoon from Mateer.
They need better quarterback play, plain and simple. And if the ground game doesn’t improve by then, Texas’ front seven may do exactly what Georgia’s did on Saturday.
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