FOX Sports' Joel Klatt rates OU's John Mateer as college football's top QB and 'maybe even better than advertised'

FOX Sports college football analyst Joel Klatt revised his top 10 college football quarterback list from earlier this season, and there is a new occupant of the No. 1 spot. Oklahoma's John Mateer was the new No. 1 on Klatt's top-10 list.

Mateer, the former Washington State transfer, began the 2025 season at No. 3 on Klatt's top-10 list, but his impressive play in the opening three games this season has attracted a lot of interest from college football experts around the country and confirmed a lot of the preseason expectations that media types like Klatt had about how Mateer would impact the sluggish Oklahoma offense.

Joel Klatt deems John Mateer top QB in college football

"He was my No. 3 quarterback in the spring," Klatt said about Mateer this week on his 'Joel Klatt Show' podcast. "I thought he was going to be good. He has been good, and maybe even better than advertised.

"Are his numbers as good as some of the other guys on the list? No. But he goes out there and elevates the play of everyone around him. We saw that against Michigan. He can go to a different level and give his team a chance to win the football game and be the reason they win the football game."

Mateer has thrown for an SEC-best 944 yards through three games (seventh in the FBS) and is averaging 368 total yards of offense per game (second-best in the FBS). He is also the Sooners' second leading rusher with 161 yards on the ground and an average of 53.7 per game.

Prior to the 2025 season, Cade Klubnik of Clemson, Texas' Arch Manning and Garrett Nussmeier of LSU were who everybody was talking about, and Klubnik and Manning were Klatt's No. 1 and No. 2 quarterbacks in the country, respectively. Nussmeier was No. 6 in the earlier top-10 ranking. Interestingly, though, none of the three are on Klatt's revised top-10 quarterback list.

Mateer and Carson Beck of Miami are the only two quarterbacks from Klatt's original list back in the spring that remained on the top-10 list after three games. Five SEC quarterbacks were on the top-10 list issued in May, but just one from that list (Mateer) made the revised list.

Here is what Klatt's revised top-10 list 2025 college quarterbacks looks like:

1. John Mateer, Oklahoma Sooners

2. Carson Beck, Miami Hurricanes

3. Dante Moore, Oregon Ducks

4. Gunner Stockton, Georgia Bulldogs

5. Haynes King, Georgia Tech

6. Tommy Castellanos, Florida State Seminoles

7. Rocco Becht, Iowa State Cyclones

8. Joey Aguilar, Tennessee Volunteers

9. Jayden Maiava, USC Trojans

10. Julian Sayin, Ohio State Buckeyes

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