The John Mateer hype is running wild in Norman. The Oklahoma Sooners football transfer is emerging as the last-ditch hope that can break Brent Venables’s five-season-long College Football Playoff drought curse.
The offense that Venables has paired Mateer with makes the hype more believable, given his familiarity with Ben Arbuckle’s offense from his Washington State days.
All of that paired with his QB skills is why most analysts are betting on Mateer’s success rates in 2025.
"I think John Mateer is going to fit in very well," ESPN’s Paul Finebaum said about the expectations from Sooners after a letdown 10-3 season.
"This is based on people who have seen him perform out there and those who know the Sooners' depth chart. I really like what I see."
However, the SEC mouthpiece warned that despite all the hype, things could go wrong just as quickly — the reason being Oklahoma’s dreadful-looking schedule.
“It's a big year. A couple of tricky games. The second half of the schedule, to me, is littered with tough road games."
They face Michigan in one of their first matchups of the 2025 season. The Wolverines will likely have an equally hyped QB starting in Bryce Underwood.
While a few of their SEC rivals, like Auburn, don’t look as daunting, their later games in the season particularly do.
The Red River Rivalry game against the nation’s best team, Texas, followed by the final six games against South Carolina, Ole Miss, Tennessee, Alabama, Missouri, and LSU.
Navigating this schedule would be the toughest roadblock in the Sooners' path to the CFP this season.
Mateer will shoulder all the expectations for it.