Poor journalism over partial quote puts Sooner QB John Mateer in an unfairly bad light
THE HOME OFFICE, Okla. — The problem with SEC Media Days, or any conference’s media days, is you can’t possibly be everywhere at once, and you really can’t be everywhere at once when covering it remotely.
Players and coaches may sit for a formal press conference, one producing a transcript all can read. There’s also bound to be exclusive sitdowns (or standups) for radio and television, or breakout sessions here, there and everywhere, maybe for hometown reporters who traveled, or just anybody standing around.
I’m not sure which Oklahoma quarterback John Mateer got himself involved with on Monday. I only know it did him no favors.
The Sooner quarterback was seated in front of an SEC banner, speaking into an SEC microphone, while the reporters appeared to be standing, crowding themselves around Mateer’s makeshift mount.
Often, it’s called a scrum. A rugby reference, even in America.
Whatever, it produced a kind of damning quote, showing up on Instagram and Twitter as though it was the entirety of one of Mateer’s thoughts.
The question was said to have been about reading SEC defenses and Mateer’s quote was said to have been the following:
“There’s not really any time to think. If someone is open you just throw it to them.”
It’s not the kind of quote you want following you around after a season in which you threw almost as many interceptions (11) as touchdowns (14).
In a tweet, reporter Chris Marler, who appears to have many employers based upon a look at his Twitter page, called it a “Potential Quote of the week on day one.”
Yet, as it turned out, the question wasn’t exactly about reading SEC defenses and Mateer’s answer wasn’t nearly all that was reported.
In fact, you can listen to both, beginning at about the 1:40 mark, on this video.
The question, though hard to hear every word, had to do with the decision to “stand in the pocket or extend the play,” and what Mateer said was this:
“Yeah, you don’t really have time to think out there, so it’s all instinct, you know, so you just play and feel. It’s all feel and instinct, but you train those instincts in the offseason. So, you just react and if somebody’s open you throw it to them and if the pocket’s breaking down, you go make a play.”
One, Marler, if he hasn’t already, should take down his tweet, as well as the story he produced for AtoZ Sports, which then found its way to Yahoo, built entirely around just a snippet of Mateer’s entire answer and nothing else.
Honestly, I’d be shocked if Marler was even in the scrum surrounding Mateer. Had he been, he should have known what the real question was and what the real answer was.
Yet, not being there — or being there and paying no attention — he went with his tweet and story anyway, designed entirely for clicks rather than any real understanding of what Mateer said.
Two, it’s still not a great look for Mateer, because it’s not really all feel and instinct, is it?
And when you say something like, “you just react and if somebody’s open you throw it to them,” even as part of a much larger answer, it still sounds a lot like “if somebody appears to be open you throw it to them” which was a problem of his last season, when beyond the TD and INT numbers, he completed only 62.2 percent (247 of 397) of his passes for just 11.7 yards per attempt, which no longer approaches big-time college football adequacy, though it might have made you an All-Pro in the 1970s.
Perhaps if he’d said something about reading the defense.
Perhaps if he’d said something about his improved pocket awareness leading to better decisions in the coming season.
Of course, the question was not about what happens following the snap, but what happens when it’s time to hang or bolt, at which point it really does come down to feel and instinct.
Ugh.
Parsing is exhausting.
Then again, even the most non-forgiving Mateer critic should understand a quote like the one Marler tweeted (and others ran with) screams to be found in its complete form.
What Sooner fans should hope is what Mateer said about “training those instincts” comes true in the new season. Because, you may recall, pocket awareness was mostly not on his bingo card last year.
And so we move on, with a little more understanding of and for the Sooner quarterback, not to mention the inherent inaccuracy of stories and tweets designed not to inform, but just to be clicked and shared.