Oklahoma's John Mateer deemed top-10 quarterback

The expectations for John Mateer keep inflating, and it's still only January.

On3 released its rankings of the top-10 college quarterbacks in the country heading into the 2025, and it included Mateer, who just transferred to Oklahoma from Washington State this offseason.

Mateer was ninth on the list with Arizona State's Sam Leavitt, Penn State's Drew Allar, Florida's DJ Lagway, Texas' Arch Manning, South Carolina's LaNorris Sellers, LSU's Garrett Nussmeier, Miami's Carson Beck, Clemson's Cade Klubnik and Tennessee's Nico Iamaleava.

Sooner Nation might get a chuckle out of this, but Brad Crawford of CBS Sports also released a list of top-10 quarterbacks and put former OU QB Jackson Arnold, now with Auburn, at No. 10. Mateer was not on that list.

Mateer transferred to OU shortly after Arnold left for Auburn. The move seemed inevitable, though, with Brent Venables hiring Mateer's offensive coordinator, Ben Arbuckle. Mateer ultimately followed Arbuckle to Norman, and the hype immediately started then.

In his first year starting as a sophomore in Arbuckle's offense, Mateer led all of FBS with 44 total TDs this past season. He threw for 3,139 yards and 29 TDs while completing 64.9% of his passes. Mateer also rushed for 826 yards and 15 scores.

Mateer's numbers probably would have already had him as a top-10 QB and Heisman Trophy contender last year if he played for the Sooners then. The knock on Mateer was lack of competition (plus late-night games on odd networks like The CW). Washington State essentially played a Group of 5 schedule with the Pac-12 including only the Cougars and Oregon State in 2024.

On3's own J.D. PicKell backed up his site's hype on Mateer, though, saying who Mateer played shouldn't matter when he put up the numbers he did.