Oklahoma quarterback John Mateer looked like one of the nation’s best players to start the 2025 season. However, he suffered a hand injury in the Sooners’ game against Auburn, which required surgery and forced him to miss Oklahoma’s matchup with Kent State.
He returned in Week 7 against Texas but hasn’t looked like his former self. One analyst believes Mateer might never fully recover, noting that his injury parallels that of a 2025 seventh-round NFL Draft pick.
Will John Mateer Ever Return to His Pre-Injury Form?
It was hard to find a quarterback playing better than Mateer through the season’s first four weeks. However, following his hand injury and surgery, the Sooners’ quarterback has steadily declined.
In his first game back in Week 7 against Texas, Mateer ranked 161st among college quarterbacks in PFSN’s CFB QBi metric. He improved in Week 8 against South Carolina, finishing the week ranked 24th among all college signal-callers, but he still didn’t look like the player he was to start the year.
With Mateer’s recent struggles, FOX Sports’ Joel Klatt believes he may never fully regain his pre-injury form. Klatt compared Mateer to former Indiana quarterback Kurtis Rourke, noting that after Rourke underwent a similar surgery, he never returned to his previous level.
“Mateer has not looked himself since coming back from that injury, and I would just say, Kurtis Rourke, the quarterback at Indiana a year ago, had a similar surgery and just never the same quarterback,” Klatt said.
He later continued, “It was not the same offense and not the same player. Even if the ball looked like it was coming off of his hand fine, it just wasn’t the same, and I’m getting the same type of vibes with Mateer.”
It’s a troubling parallel for Mateer and Oklahoma fans. At one point last year, Kurtis Rourke seemed poised to be a day-two draft pick and lead Indiana to playoff success. However, after his injury, his play declined, and he was ultimately selected in the seventh round of the 2025 NFL Draft.
The good news for Mateer is that no two injury recoveries are the same. Some players heal better than others, and there’s still a strong chance he can keep improving each week.
There’s no denying the surgery has affected his play over the past two weeks, but with noticeable improvement from Week 7 to Week 8, the trend suggests he can return to a level close to the one he showed at the start of the season.
