It wasn't a rainy night in Georgia, as the lyrics from the popular song suggest, but it might as well have been from an Oklahoma point of view. For sure, the Sooners' first-ever game at Georgia was difficult to take in, and even more so from which to take away any resemblance of a silver lining.
Georgia ranks No. 2 in the country after the first four weeks of the 2026 season, but some analysts believe the Bulldogs are the most complete team right now in college football. And they looked like just that for most of Saturday's 41-13 throttling of the struggling Sooners.
The age-old formula for beating great teams, especially on the road, is establish the run game on offense, protect the ball and stop the opponent from running the ball. Oklahoma managed to do just one of the three, and that one was even questionable.
The Oklahoma defense forced a three-and-out on Georgia's opening possession, but that proved to be the calm preceding the storm, as the Bulldogs scored touchdowns on three of the next four first-half possessions, as well as a defensive touchdown on an 85-yard fumble return on a ball that slipped out of John Mateer's hand. A fumble on a Mateer run in the second quarter ultimately led to another Georgia touchdown.
Although the Sooner offense actually outgained Georgia through three quarters on Saturday (210-173), for the third straight game, the offense failed to reach 300 yards for the game. OU ended up with 296 yards of offense, but only 65 of that was achieved on designed running plays.
The Sooners came into the game with Georgia with just 331 rushing yards in three games. That was the team's fewest yards on the ground through the first three games of the season since 1939, and it obviously didn't get any better in Game 4.
As inept and unfixable as the Oklahoma offense appears one-third the way through the 2026 schedule, it's difficult to contemplate how the Sooners will even get to six wins and bowl eligibility this season. They haven't missed a bowl game since 1998, the season before Bob Stoops became head coach.
Next up is a date in Dallas in two weeks against archrival Texas, which sits above Georgia in the No. 1 spot in the national rankings.
The Good: The Sooners and Georgia played to a 13-13 tie in the 2nd half
After falling behind 28-0 after the first 30 minutes, Oklahoma played Georgia more evenly in the second half.
An interception by OU's Omarion Robinson set up OU's first touchdown on its second possession of the second half. The Sooners added a second touchdown late in the fourth quarter. Meanwhile, the Sooner defense gave up just one touchdown and a couple of field goals to Georgia over the final 30 minutes. The second half was played to a 13-13 deadlock.
While the Sooners were again unable to get their running game on track, the execution by both quarterback John Mateer and the OU receivers in the passing game was better than it had been in previous games. He completed 25 of 34 passes, a completion percentage of 74%, for 231 yards and a pair of touchdowns. Wide receiver Isaiah Sategna and tight end Rocky Beers, Mateer's two favorite targets this season, each caught eight of nine targets, and Mateer distributed the ball to eight different receivers.
The Bad: 4 Oklahoma turnovers, 3 in the 1st half, doomed the Sooners from the outset
The Oklahoma offense is bad enough through the first four games this season without contributing to it by turning the ball over, which the Sooners managed to do four times against Georgia.
Those four turnovers (two fumbles and two interceptions) led to 17 Georgia points. Quarterback John Mateer was responsible for three of the four. If you lose the turnover battle and can't run the football in a conference as defensively sound as the SEC, you're not going to win many games. That is the serious dilemma facing Oklahoma as it heads into the meat of its conference schedule.
Oklahoma now has six more turnovers than takeaways through four games for a minus-six (-6) turnover margin. That ranks 133rd out of 138 FBS teams.
It wasn't for the lack of running plays on Saturday (the Sooners had 35 rushing attempts and 34 pass plays) that the OU rushing attack was again a non-factor in the game. Oklahoma was able to gain just 1.9 yards per rushing attempt and didn't have a run longer than nine yards by any of six different ball carriers.
The Oklahoma defensive numbers from this game don't look very good, especially in points allowed, but Georgia's high-octane offense was able to gain just 10 more yards of offense (306) than the Sooners. Oklahoma came into the game having allowed just three touchdowns in the first three games. The Sooners allowed five TDs on Saturday to a team that was averaging 59 points a game, but two of those were the direct result of OU turnovers.
The Ugly: John Mateer has become his own worst enemy
John Mateer's performance in the first half of the Georgia game was the ugliest of any of his 16 games over the past two seasons as the Oklahoma starting quarterback. The former Washington State transfer has struggled the past three games, but on Saturday vs. the physical, aggressive and extremely stout Georgia defense, he dearly cost the Sooners.
In the second quarter, with Oklahoma facing third down and goal-to-go at the two-yard line, Mateer rolled out to his left. He had an open receiver in the left corner of the end zone, but as he pump-faked and drew his arm back, the ball slipped out of his hand and was scooped up by Georgia linebacker Chris Cole and returned 85 yards for a touchdown and a potential 14-point turnaround to go up 21-0.
On the Sooners' next possession in the second quarter and with Oklahoma driving and seven yards into Georgia territory, Mateer threw an interception to end the drive. The nightmare continued one possession later, when Mateer was sacked and lost the ball to Georgia on the OU 34-yard line. The Bulldogs turned Mateer's third mistake in as many possessions into seven points and a 28-0 lead two plays later.
At that point in the game, Brent Venables, in his postgame press conference, acknowledged that he actually considered pulling Mateer from the game, but decided that Mateer still gave the Sooners their best chance to win the game. Offensive coordinator Ben Arbuckle also remarked in his postgame comments that Mateer's confidence isn't at its best right now.
That, in and of itself, can be a prime contributor to the kind of costly mistakes the OU quarterback has been guilty of in opening the 2026 season.
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