Brent Venables non-committal on QB John Mateer's status for Texas game
NORMAN — Will Oklahoma quarterback John Mateer suit up and play against Texas on Saturday?
That was the ultimate question heading into OU coach Brent Venables’ press conference on Tuesday. Venables didn’t say anything to indicate whether his star quarterback will play in the Red River Rivalry.
Mateer has been sidelined for two weeks following surgery on his right thumb, which kept him out of the Sooners’ 44-0 win over Kent State last Saturday. However, there have been indications that Mateer is making serious progression towards playing against Texas, as evidenced by the report from ESPN’s Pete Thamel on Tuesday morning.
However, Venables said during Monday’s coaches show that he doesn’t know when Mateer will play, and he reiterated that during his press conference.
“I don’t know anything about the injury,” Venables said. “I’m just going to cut you off. I don’t know anything about the injury. So when they tell me he’s available, I’ll let y’all know.
“John is doing no good-on-good work. So, it’s Michael (Hawkins) and Whitt (Newbauer) right now. If something changes, I’ll let you know. But I think if you’re gonna play, you’ve gotta do good on good, right? Throw some skelly. Hand the ball off. Play on third downs.”
Mateer emerged as an early candidate for the Heisman Trophy through the first four weeks, throwing for 1,215 yards and six touchdowns while completing 67% of his passes and adding 190 rushing yards and five touchdowns.
The Sooners also notably held Monday’s practice indoors, though Venables said that was due to weather concerns. If anything, Venables’ assessment would indicate there is some doubt on Mateer’s status. However, there is real momentum towards Mateer being available.
If Mateer can’t play, Hawkins would be in line to make his second consecutive start this weekend. Hawkins completed 14/24 passes for 162 yards and three touchdowns in last week’s win over Kent State, adding 33 yards and a touchdown on the ground. Hawkins also started last year’s Red River Rivalry game, which the Sooners lost 34-3.
Regardless of Mateer’s status, the Sooners are certainly preparing Hawkins as if he’ll play.
“I think Mike played really confident,” Arbuckle said of Hawkins’ performance last week. “I thought he had great eyes. He knew where to go with the ball. Really on point a lot of times. There’s some things maybe we could clean up just with his footwork that’ll allow him to make the throw a little bit easier. But Mike had really good command, he had really good awareness a lot of times of what was going on. I
“I think that’s things you can build on. One of the things we can always get better at is just our footwork and our timing with certain things that I think will just make things a little bit easier. Mike played really well, he prepared great and he’s taken that same process this week.”
Texas coach Steve Sarkisian said the Longhorns are preparing as if Mateer will play.
“We’ll plan for (John) Mateer. You have to,” Sarkisian said Monday. “He’s a dynamic player. He’s the heartbeat of that offense, for sure. Everything goes through him. We played against (Michael) Hawkins last year. He’s a much improved player. Like most young players, they get better over time. You can see his improvement for sure.
But Coach Arbuckle has got a great scheme that we got to prepare for the scheme. He’s a fantastic coach. They tax you a lot of different ways, varying tempos, formations, trick plays, quarterback runs, shot plays. And so we’ve got to prepare for the offense as much as we need to prepare for the quarterback, which one it’s going to be. So it’s more about the offense in our in our world.”
The Sooners (5-0) will take on Texas (3-2) at 2:30 p.m. in Dallas. The game will be broadcast on ABC.