The spring report, Sooner football edition
We actually know quite a bit, not that Saturday's game helped inform us much
Author’s note: Ryan Welton and I are back with a new podcast, the subject of which is Oklahoma football a couple of days after the spring game. I’d say the news is good, just not where you might have thought it would be. Also, we’re a fun listen, so give it a try.
Of course, you can still read me, too, even on the same topic. I’m convinced I’m smart about the Sooners and have demonstrated it for a long time. Not only that, but I get off some good lines, on the pod in the column. Enjoy and thanks for being here.
So Oklahoma had its spring game on Saturday, the one some still call the Red-White Game, the one that means so little.
I’ve been to maybe two dozen and I’ve yet to see a star emerge.
Coaches like to say it mimics game-type situations but it doesn’t.
They hire referees, there are folks in the stands, but quarterbacks and others cannot be tackled, coaches roam the field, it’s nothing like an actual game.
Saturday at Owen Field, at least they had two different teams.
The best in Red, the rest in White.
Red prevailed 31-3.
Yet, if there’s not much to learn from the spring game, you can still learn plenty by listening, because everybody talks after and if you know how to listen, applying experience as a filter, knowledge drops in your lap.
Here it is.
Mateer a mystery
If you really want to believe in John Mateer as a much improved, ready-to-show-us-what-he’s-really about, Heisman-in-the-offing quarterback, go right ahead, just know it’s reliant on hope, not reality.
“Super productive,” said Mateer, when asked to summarize his spring. “I think that’s the word I’d use. A lot of things still to clean up, but that’s what’s so beautiful about the game.”
I guess, but you know what’s what’s been more beautiful through the years?
Jason White, Sam Bradford, Baker Mayfield and Kyler Murray at the height of their powers and absolutely nobody has forecast Mateer even to be a greatly improved quarterback.
At the spring game, where he finished 12 of 19 for 192 yards — not great — and a touchdown according to stats posted after the game, he kept his feet on the ground and kept his arm up, so maybe that’s something.
Still, here’s head coach Brent Venables being as positive as he could be about his quarterback.
“Yeah, leadership, decision-making, touch,” he said, “he has a chance to be a fantastic playmaker at that position.”
Sorry, not impressed.
At times, Mateer showed all those skills last season and still he threw just 14 touchdown passes, which is way too few, and 11 interceptions, which is way too many.
Whatever he managed over the spring, he did not jump off the page.
Had he, we would have heard about it.
Arbuckle says nothing
Oh, sure, Sooner offensive coordinator Ben Arbuckle speaks words, but they don’t mean anything.
As mentioned above, Venables may have been trying to lift up his quarterback. He didn’t, not really, but he still told you something that’s probably true. Mateer has a “chance” to become the quarterback he described.
Arbuckle?
Nope
The dean of the press pool, the great Berry Tramel, asked Arbuckle what he expected from Mateer coming into next season vs. what he expected from Mateer coming into last season.
He made it clear Arbuckle should be able to answer the question better than anybody, for not only is he Mateer’s coordinator and position coach, he was those things to Mateer two seasons ago, too, at Washington State.
First, Arbuckle congratulated Tramel on a “great question.”
He then said this:
“He’s always been a worker, a self-critic of himself,” Arbuckle said. “I’ve been watching that amplify and watching him attack what needs to be attacked, lead with what needs to be led and compete the way he needs to complete, while also continuing to develop himself as a player.
“He’s going to own everything, all the good, all the bad that may come with it, but he’s going to compete his butt off. That’s why I love the kid.”
Great question, maybe, but no answer, just filibuster.
That and somebody should to tell Arbuckle it makes Mateer look worse when his coordinator is afraid to answer a question about him.
Running game will vastly improve
The only caveat on this one is, as long as the offensive line doesn’t crater, and it shouldn’t barring being plagued by injury.
That line brings back five from last season with a great deal of starting experience:
• Michael Fasusi, who made 10 starts at left tackle his true freshman season.
• Eddy Pierre-Louis, a redshirt sophomore who started six games at left guard.
• Jake Maikkula, a redshirt senior who made 10 starts at center after transferring in from Stanford;
• Ryan Fodje, a sophomore who played in every game last season, starting four at right tackle and two at right guard;
• Heath Ozaeta, a redshirt junior who made seven starts at left guard.
Also in the fold is Arkansas transfer E’Marion Harris, a redshirt senior, who started 11 games for the Razorbacks last season, primarily at right tackle.
If those six can stay healthy or mostly stay healthy, or depth can be developed even if they don’t, the line should hold up.
It should also get help from a more impactful tight end contingent now tutored by former Cowboy great Jason Witten.
Then there’s what Venables said, because you don’t often get definitive quotes like this from a football coach.
“We had more explosive runs this spring than we had in the previous three years, with all of those springs combined,” he said.
That’s something.
Also, get this, OU’s two returning running backs, Tory Blaylock and Xavier Robinson, both sat out the spring to injury.
That means those explosive runs were delivered by Lloyd Avant, a junior transfer from Colorado State; DeZephen Walker, an early enrollee true freshman and four-star prospect from Kansas City; and Jonathan Hatton Jr., an early enrollee true freshman and four-star prospect from Cibolo, Texas.
How about that?
Saturday, Avant started but Walker led, turning eight carries into 81 yards.
One more thing?
Kevin Wilson, the old Sooner offensive coordinator, who returned to be an offensive analyst last season, is now being paid $500,000 to inhabit the role of “assistant head coach for offense,” a position now listed among Sooner assistant coaches, making him an analyst no more.
It can only help because Wilson’s been a better offensive line coach than Bill Bedenbaugh’s ever been and a better offensive coordinator than Ben Arbuckle’s ever been.
He probably knows how to communicate better — period, and with the head coach — than both of them, too.
Mateer need not get better
You’re going to see it written and you’re going to hear it said, if OU’s to go back to the playoff, or make a dent once there, Mateer must return a significantly better quarterback.
It’s not true.
His numbers must improve, yes, but he doesn’t have to improve for that to happen.
Because with a significantly better running game his numbers can’t help but improve. He won’t be under the same pressure; made to worry about the run, opposing defenses can’t sell out to the pass; it will be a whole new paradigm, making him a more efficient quarterback, thus improving the offense, whether he himself has improved or not.
Final thoughts
So, if the defense is what it’s been, or even 85 percent of what it’s been, and the running game is what we now, with good reason, believe it will be, barring a cratered line, and the Sooners don’t become bizarrely unlucky because that can happen, too, and their quarterback stays healthy, well, they ought to be pretty good.
Should their quarterback improve?
Call it a bonus, putting the trophy on the table.
You want a spring report?
You got a spring report.