Quarterback John Mateer could have chosen to go just about anywhere when he was in the transfer portal this offseason, but he chose the Oklahoma Sooners.
Mateer was the No. 1 available player in the transfer portal when he committed to OU in December. He had just finished his sophomore season at Washington State with 3,139 passing yards and 29 touchdowns, along with 826 yards and 15 scores on the ground. His 44 total TDs led all of FBS last season.
Ultimately, Mateer followed his offensive coordnator, Ben Arbuckle, to Norman. OU coach Brent Venables hired the 29-year-old Arbuckle to be the Sooners' new play-caller, and Arbuckle had his QB1 less than a month later.
Nearly three months later, after so much talk about the Sooners' new quarterback, the man himself finally got to talk to media on Wednesday, the day before OU starts spring practice.
"It's all pretty surreal," Mateer said. "I mean, I'm a quarterback for the Oklahoma Sooners, you know. It's wild. But I'm here, and I feel blessed to do it. And it's close to home, which is great. My family loves it, obviously, because I'm so close. But, I mean, it goes back to, like, the expectations and the pressure, I think it's just a privilege and opportunity to be here and work as hard as I can with all the resources I have and the great teammates I have around me to just put my best performance on the field."
It’s still surreal to John Mateer that he’s a quarterback at Oklahoma.
— The REF (@KREFsports) March 5, 2025
“I mean I’m a quarterback for the Oklahoma Sooners. It’s wild. But I’m here and blessed to do it.” pic.twitter.com/aPTWfLfZbv
The privilege (and pressure) of being a quarterback at Oklahoma is displayed outside Gaylord Family - Oklahoma Stadium with Heisman Park. Seven OU players have won a Heisman Trophy, with the last four being quarterbacks and three coming within the last 20 years.
Mateer already had odds to win the Heisman Trophy only a day after committing to OU. But while there has been four quarterbacks emerge as the best player in college football since 2000, there hasn't been an OU team be the best in the country since.
"I walk past (Heisman Park) every day. I park right there," Mateer said. "What is there, seven statues right there? It's pretty cool. I don't think about it every day, like, 'Oh, that's what I want,' because that's something that can happen as an outcome of the process that you do every day. I want to win games. You win enough games, that'll happen, that could happen, but that's not the first priority. It'd be really cool. It would. I'm not gonna say it won't, but winning games is the most important, and then we'll see what happens after that."