Oklahoma went to Athens looking for a statement win and came home with the ugliest quarterback tape of the college football season. John Mateer lost three fumbles and threw an interception before halftime, and No. 2 Georgia turned all that generosity into a 41-13 rout on Saturday.
The play that will follow Mateer for years came on third-and-goal near the Georgia end zone. He scrambled to his left, the ball squirted backward out of his hand, and Bulldogs linebacker Chris Cole scooped it up and ran it 85 yards the other way for a touchdown. Seven points for Oklahoma became seven points for Georgia in about a dozen seconds.
One Snap, a 14-Point Swing
Cole’s return was the longest by a Georgia defender since Leonard Floyd went 96 yards back in 2015. It pushed the lead to 21-0 and it ended any pretense that this was going to be a football game. Georgia led 28-0 at the half and never had to sweat.
Mateer’s passing line does not look like a disaster. He completed 25 of 34 for 231 yards with two touchdowns and a pick. That is exactly the problem with reading a box score. Everything that decided this game lives in the turnover column, and Mateer owned all four of them.
He called the fumble a freak thing afterward, saying the ball had slipped out of his hand that way only in cold morning practices back at Washington State and never in a game. Sure. It still happened on third-and-goal in Sanford Stadium with his team’s season hanging on the drive.
The Sooners Have a Bigger Problem Than One Play
Oklahoma averaged 1.9 yards per carry. The line could not keep Georgia off Mateer, and the staff burned two timeouts in the first quarter, which is what happens when an offense shows up to a road environment without a plan it trusts. Brent Venables said the Sooners failed miserably at protecting the football, and that was the generous read.
Mateer came back for one more college season rather than leaving for the NFL, and that call looks worse every Saturday. A hand injury gave him cover for last year’s inconsistency. There is no injury to point at now, just a quarterback who keeps putting the ball on the ground in the biggest moments Oklahoma has.
Where This Leaves Oklahoma
The Sooners are 2-2 overall and 0-1 in the SEC, and they dropped out of the AP Top 25. The Athletic’s projection model puts their College Football Playoff chances around 12 percent, and that feels charitable for a team whose quarterback just produced four turnovers against the best defense it will see all year.
Oklahoma does not get a soft landing either. The SEC schedule is unforgiving, and a team that cannot run the ball or hold onto it is going to keep finding out how unforgiving.
Georgia Looks Like the Standard Again
Kirby Smart spent his postgame griping about a second-half lull. His team won by 28 and he wanted more, which tells you where the bar sits in Athens. Georgia is 4-0, 2-0 in the SEC, and has not surrendered a single point in the first quarter all season, outscoring opponents 63-0 in the opening 15 minutes.
Gunner Stockton was clean and efficient, 14 of 25 for 171 yards and a touchdown, with Talyn Taylor posting his first 100-yard receiving day. Chauncey Bowens found the end zone twice. Georgia never needed a monster offensive performance, because Oklahoma’s quarterback kept delivering the ball to the wrong sideline.
The Bulldogs will get tougher tests. They will not get an easier gift than the one Mateer handed them on Saturday.
A longtime sports reporter, Carlos Garcia has written about some of the biggest and most notable athletic events of the last 5 years. He has been credentialed to cover MLS, NBA and MLB games all over the United States. His work has been published on Fox Sports, Bleacher Report, AOL and the Washington Post.