Oklahoma Coach Brent Venables Details QB John Mateer's Week: 'Never Did Any Good on Good'

Oklahoma coach Brent Venables apparently had a change of heart about quarterback John Mateer last week.

Venables said at his weekly press conference last Tuesday that, coming off thumb surgery on Sept. 24, Mateer hadn’t participated in any upper-level practice drills as of last Tuesday, and seemed to indicate that would be part of the equation for deciding of Mateer was capable of playing against Texas on Saturday.

“I think if you're gonna play, you've gotta do good-on-good, right?” Venables said last week. “Throw some skelly (pass skeleton plays). Hand the ball off. Play on third downs. So …”

Mateer did play against the Longhorns — he threw three interceptions and generally had his worst statistical day in 17 games as a college starter in a 23-6 loss — but never did get that “good-on-good” work that Venables said he’d need.

Venables said Sunday on his weekly coaches show with Toby Rowland that Mateer had a comparatively light week of practice.

“Starting on Tuesday,” Venables said, “started into some, you know, throwing the ball with the scout (team) work and things of that nature. Never did any of the good-on-good all week, where (it’s) the offense versus the defense, which you spend a few periods on Tuesday and Wednesday against each other (working on) third downs, team, first-and-10, red zone, things like that. So he never went against the defense, but got all the other snaps. 

“I think it was a progression to his throwing count, starting on Monday, to, you know, see how his hand would respond. And it responded well.” 

Mateer completed 20-of-38 passes for 202 yards and ran 14 times for a net of just 5 yards. His passer efficiency rating was 81.5 — a career-low for him including the 2024 season as a breakout star at Washington State. Mateer has had just one other game in his career in which his efficiency rating was below 105 (a 25-17 win at Fresno State last year).

Even with an injured thumb on his throwing hand, Mateer was in the game late taking hit after hit from the Texas defense as the Sooners tried to rally. He was sacked five times, tackled 14 times and hit several more. At one point during the ESPN broadcast, it was noted that Mateer’s thumb was bleeding.

“Again, John's a really tough guy, as we know,” Venables added on Sunday. “So if there was some soreness and things like that — which was in the muscle, not apparently, according to John and the doctors, nothing from where the actual wound was and the the break was — but the soreness was just in the muscles within the finger and things like that. 

“But again, seemed to hold up. I don't, you know, John says it was never an issue in the game, and it felt fine. And I think the little scab on his hand was bleeding a little bit, but nothing was affected structurally at all.” 

Mateer had 21 days off between games, and apparently had no real practice time to prepare himself for the speed and ferocity of a talented and accomplished Texas defense. 

Mateer said the thumb didn’t bother him physically, but he might have been affected “mentally” by the whole situation.

“The pain level was nothing,” he said. “There’s no excuse. I was ready to go, physically. Mentally, I just didn’t perform. My eyes weren’t as good as they needed to be.”

Offensive coordinator Ben Arbuckle said Mateer’s thumb didn’t inhibit his play, but did acknowledge that rust might have been a factor.

“There's a lot of things on the film today that he did really well,” Arbuckle said in the postgame interview, “and there's some things on the film where I think he'll be mad about some ball placement and maybe where his eyes were in a few things. But John's a competitor. John's a tough kid. John's a very self aware kid, and I know he'll respond the right way.” 

“Was there an opportunity to be a little bit out of rhythm? Maybe,” Venables said. “He did a lot of really good things in that game. And again, you're playing a really good team and defense, one of the best defenses in college football.”

OU (5-1 overall, 1-1 Southeastern Conference) dropped to No. 14 in this week’s Associated Press Top 25 and plays this week at South Carolina.