Oddly enough, this is the first time Mayfield and Belichick have competed against one another for something during their careers.
Mayfield, who is currently the starting quarterback for the NFL’s Tampa Bay Buccaneers, surprisingly never faced the New England Patriots when Belichick was the franchise’s head coach.
The former Patriots coach has praised Mayfield in the recent past, but that might not happen again after Mateer picked the Sooners over the Tar Heels.
As for Oklahoma’s new addition, Mateer was regarded by many as the top quarterback in this year’s transfer portal, so Sooners fans have every right to be excited about the school’s new signal-caller.
This past season, Mateer appeared in 12 games for Washington State, and during his time on the field, he completed 64.6 percent of his passes for 3,139 yards, 29 touchdowns and seven interceptions, in addition to rushing for 826 yards and another 15 scores.
Perhaps his decision to play for Oklahoma shouldn’t come as a surprise since he’ll be reuniting with former Cougars offensive coordinator Ben Arbuckle, who left Washington State to become the Sooners’ new offensive coordinator earlier this month.
Mateer and Arbuckle will work together to try to fix an Oklahoma offense that ranked 94th in the nation in points per game during the 2024 season when it was led by Michael Hawkins Jr. and Jackson Arnold at quarterback.
There are plenty of reasons to be excited about the arrivals of Mateer and Arbuckle, but if they aren’t able to help the Sooners get back to the level of success they had under former head coaches Lincoln Riley and Bob Stoops, then current Oklahoma head coach Brent Venables is probably going to be on the hot seat next year.
This season was the second time in the last three years under Venables that the Sooners have finished their regular-season schedule with only six wins.
Oklahoma was known for a school that consistently won 11 or 12 games under Riley and Stoops. So, six wins is definitely unacceptable and likely won’t be tolerated if the Sooners do something similar in 2025.
But after landing Mateer on Wednesday, Venables has to at least feel much more confident about his future with Oklahoma than he probably did 24 hours before the quarterback announced his commitment to the school.
