Welcome back to The McShay Report! Today, we’re continuing our Summer Scouting Series with Oklahoma (and former Washington State) quarterback John Mateer.
If you’re a new subscriber or haven’t read my scouting reports before, make sure to check out the rest of my notes—including tape breakdowns of Arch Manning, Garrett Nussmeier, LaNorris Sellers, Drew Allar, and Fernando Mendoza—here.
On Thursday, we’ll be diving into the tape on Arizona State’s Sam Leavitt. If you have any questions about my process, or you’re curious about what goes into scouting a quarterback, feel free to reply to this email and we’ll do our best to answer your questions in subsequent newsletters or shows.
Getty Images/Ringer illustration
John Mateer Background
Mateer is listed at 6-foot-1, 220 pounds. He began his career at Washington State, where he was a three-year player and one-year starter (24 games, 12 starts). As team captain in 2024, he started all 12 games and completed 64.6 percent of his throws (224 of 347) for 3,139 passing yards with 29 touchdowns to only seven interceptions. Also rushed for 826 yards and 15 TDs last season. OC Ben Arbuckle traveled with Mateer to OU from WSU.
Players are graded on a scale of 1-5, with 1 being best.
Mental Makeup (3)
Tough as nails and plays his ass off. Insanely competitive.
Fast eyes and shows flashes of being able to go through full-field progressions. Very decisive. Also a highly instinctive playmaker when on the move and surveying the field.
Thrives in turbulence, which is a great attribute. But needs to stop creating some of his own turbulence with frenetic play style and pocket impatience. Can he be trusted? That’s the question NFL teams will be asking if he can’t dial back some of the recklessness.
To his credit, though, for all the overly aggressive mistakes and errant throws, he only threw seven picks in ’24 and fumbled three times
Accuracy (3)
All over the board with ball placement but perfectly capable of correcting the issues because he’s a naturally gifted thrower of the football. Inconsistencies all have to do with mechanics.
Makes some spectacular throws when sprinting to his left or right. Uncanny ability to deliver the ball from unorthodox arm angles and/or completely off-balance.
However, he’s wildly inconsistent in part due to his wildly erratic launch points (both lower body and arm). But even when everything is calm around him, he still seems to create self-inflicted chaos (that’s the best way I can describe it).
Release and Arm Strength (2)
Generates a lot of torque from the craziest of launch points. True “arm strength” is pretty damn good. Gets really nice zip on intermediate throws. Can drive it vertically with relative ease. Not elite overall ball velocity but very good—and has room to grow in this area with better lower-body mechanics.
As far as assessing his “normal” stroke, it’s tricky to figure out the baseline because he varies his delivery with such frequency. And even when he has space to operate, he still likes to change arm angle and throw off-balance.
Brings ball down the back chute at times and needs to work on consistency of ball carriage. But he can snap the ball off in a flash when he needs to.
Pocket Mobility (1.5)
Ultra quick feet. Extremely sudden in the pocket. And speed to match.
Legitimate running threat on RPOs and WB draws, in addition to scrambles. Makes sharp cuts
On one hand, I applaud that he’s almost always advancing the offense by climbing and pressing the LOS (rather than retreating right or left or drifting).
On the other hand, I would like to see him show more patience in the pocket. Very quick to bail on the pocket and his progression reads.
Needs to learn it’s OK to slide from pressure and reset feet. Not every maneuver in the pocket needs to result in a fire drill.
Eight sacks vs. Boise State is a snapshot of what concerns me about his play style in the NFL. A few too many times where he gets greedy and pays the price. He won’t be able to run from all the bullets in the NFL and we saw glimpses of that in this game. But it’s also important to note that, overall, I thought he played well against this suffocating defense. He wound up completing 70.3 percent of his passes and showed flashes of playing on schedule from inside the pocket.
Preseason Prospect Status
Mateer is a breathtaking prospect to study—in all the ways. He’s an undersized playmaker with undeniable suddenness and speed. He has a snap release with energy on the ball no matter the arm angle or body contortion on delivery. I absolutely love his competitive fire and toughness, and also appreciate that when buying time (which is frequently) he’s always looking to advance the offense rather than bailing/drifting/retreating. He routinely executed the most challenging of throws and he often delivered in clutch moments in 2024. He carried WSU’s offense last season and he’s a massive upgrade at the position for OU in 2025.
That said, Mateer’s footwork can be an unmitigated mess at times and his erratic ball placement is a direct reflection. In addition, Mateer’s frenzied style of play leads to a lot of poor decisions, despite his solid TD-to-INT ratio last season.
It’s a new stop in Norman but the same OC. My hope is that Mateer has drilled in his footwork and has worked diligently to play within structure with more patience in the pocket and sound decision-making based on progression reads.
Improving in both areas this season will be a must for Mateer as it pertains to his NFL draft stock. Simply put, Mateer’s challenge is to bottle up the magic while dialing down the turbulence. As it stands, I would comfortably say he’s a Day 2 prospect heading into the season but I’m highly intrigued by his skill set, competitiveness and playmaking ability, and I believe there’s a good deal of growth in his future.
NFL Comp: Shades of Kyler Murray, Baker Mayfield, and Johnny Manziel
I knew from watching him last season on TV and early in my tape study this week that he was a Texas HS football product—before looking up his bio (aggressive, attacking and sometimes frenzied style similar to Kyler, Manziel, Baker, and so on).
From the Scouting Notebook: A bonus inside look at some of the stream-of-consciousness notes I took while watching Mateer’s film. There could be 100-plus Mateer plays of note from ’24, so I just picked a handful from my notes to save everyone time here. (These are intentionally unedited!)
Texas Tech
14:52 1Q: INT 2nd play of game. Good base but weight transfer is off (back shoulder dips back and falls off of throw unnecessarily). Result is sailing the seam route that gets picked.
12:57 1Q: Climbs pocket and tries to make “trick-shot” throw running forward, tries side-slinging it RT with his back facing the LOS??). Way off target. What are we doing here?
1233 1Q: Climbs pocket. Decisive and sudden! Threat as runner. Good cut to make miss and burst to turn corner.
12:24 2Q: Climbs, races right, locates late-opening target… Risky but big time throw (back over middle when sprinting LT). Drop.
14:18 3Q: High difficulty shot - sprinting RT, sidearm sling, hits WR along RT SL for 1st down
7:54 4Q: If you want to know about his compete level (and speed), check out this run in this situation (Leading 34-16 midway thru 4th)!!
Washington
14:16 1Q: Rolling LT, hips around, layers it over LB hands and still drills strike to crosser w/ sidearm delivery!
9:09 1Q : Can only get away with so many of these (sprinting RT, throwing back over middle into traffic). Incomplete here but not sound football.
4:24 1Q: Shot out of cannon! Takes shotgun drop, 1st read into flat isn’t there, just bolts out of pocket and sprints into EZ for TD. He saw backs turned to him… fast reaction! Also nice stiff arm vs DL as he escapes pocket.
***These two plays back-to-back (before the half) are wild!
2:02 2Q: Instincts to know LOS and make throw before crossing. Then change arm angle while doing essentially a “jump split” in the air. Just wild stuff. You need to see the nuance of throw to understand.
1:53 2Q: Ability to generate this velocity while feet off the ground is impressive - 40 yards in air (plus from middle field to RT SL)
***then 3 plays later (on 3rd and 20 w/ :30 remaining in half) he races 25 yards for a score!!
9:39 3Q: Nice job layering ball over DB along LT SL.
14:34 4Q: Example of trying to play on time, inside pocket but missing on deep shot down left side (overshot)
8:59 4Q: Another example of trying to play on time, inside pocket but missing on deep shot down left side (*this time INT on under throw, trajectory too low as result of not driving off back leg and failing to follow through)
5:49 4Q: Like his fast eyes LT to RT from inside pocket. Drills strike to backside curl between 2 ZN defenders. Don’t see a lot of this in-structure stuff but shows he CAN!
NICE WIN OVER RIVAL! Wasn’t perfect but delivered some magic in key moments and made a couple smart plays to seal it after 4Q INT. Real positives to take from this one
Boise State (Sacked eight times)
12:52 1Q: Already trailing 7-0. Takes matters into own hands early with LONG run to set tone. 52 or so yards.
***follows it up with easy TD pass off fake DBL screen.
10:22 2Q : Under-throws left fade near goal line. NEEDS MECHANICS DRILLED IN. PERFECTLY CAPABLE of hitting these shots with more frequency.
2:05 2Q: Like this a lot. Climbs WITHOUT taking off. Slides, locates (and even gets feet back underneath him) and makes on-balance throw, hits target in stride. Good stuff. Improvement.
1:40 2Q: Raw arm talent in snap release here.
:24 2Q: INT! FORCED into double coverage. Protect the ball and accept the FGA as an option.
:35 3Q: QB draw on 3rd and 5. Conversion. Such a nice weapon in these situations.
15:00 4Q: Footwork better = better placement on LT fade shot. TD. (cuts lead to 24-17… but not for long)
13:05 4Q: Great job extending initially but throw it away for 3rd and 8, rather than 3rd and 20!
8:50 4Q: Trailing 38-17 now. But this throw (30 yards but also from LT hash to RT rail) had some heat on it. Risky but worth it in the moment and paid off.
