PULLMAN — John Mateer’s days as Washington State’s quarterback have come to an end.
WSU coach Jake Dickert confirmed as much Monday morning, sharing that Mateer will be entering the transfer portal and ending his three-year tenure with the Cougars’ program. Mateer started all 12 games this season, leading the country with 44 total touchdowns and guiding WSU to an eight-win season, the program’s first since 2018.
He will not play in the Cougs’ final game of the season, the Holiday Bowl, set for Dec. 27 in San Diego against Syracuse. Mateer’s departure is the 19th for WSU, which has now lost eight starters to the portal, including top receiver Kris Hutson and starting defensive lineman Ansel Din-Mbuh.
“John will be the most sought-after player in the portal. I think he’s gonna be the best player in the country next year,” said Dickert, who added that Mateer informed him of his decision on Sunday night. “Biggest thing for our program is it proves, once again, our process is working. Our process is working. We’re offering a bunch of kids that have no other Power Five offers. We’re developing them into something really, really special.”
At some point after WSU’s regular season ended Nov. 30 with a loss to Wyoming, WSU’s NIL team, the Cougar Collective, presented Mateer with an NIL “package” to try and keep him in Pullman, coach Jake Dickert said. The Cougs’ offer extended into the $1M range, Dickert said, but Mateer turned it down.
“It was strong,” Dickert said. “It was everything that I could have imagined and more. Really proud of that. I think our team of people were really invested in that. That was a big-time deal by our people and I thought that was really special.”
Where will Mateer end up? One possibility might be Oklahoma, where former WSU offensive coordinator Ben Arbuckle took the OC job earlier this month. Former WSU QBs coach John Kuceyeski also took a job with the Sooners last week, becoming their senior offensive assistant/assistant quarterback coach. Because of his strong rapport with Mateer, Kuceyeski had been tabbed to call WSU’s offense in the Holiday Bowl.
Those responsibilities will now go to wide receivers coach Nick Edwards, Dickert said. Edwards has coached the WSU receivers for two seasons now.
Mateer’s departure jumbles the Cougs’ QB picture a tad. This season, Mateer’s backup was ostensibly FCS Bryant transfer Zevi Eckhaus, who he beat out for the starting role during fall camp. But on Oct. 19, when Mateer came out of the game with a blowout win over Hawaii in hand, Eckhaus didn’t replace him. Redshirt freshman Jaxon Potter did.
After the game, Dickert said “there was something internal” about going to Potter over Eckhaus in that situation, saying Eckhaus was still the team’s backup. “I think Jaxon’s earned it, and he’ll continue to get better,” Dickert said. “It’s really good to see him go out there and play some football.” But neither Eckhaus nor Potter got another chance to enter a game for the rest of the season.
One explanation might be that because Eckhaus still has a redshirt year available to him, and because he didn’t win the starting job at Washington State, coaches are doing him a favor and giving him a chance to redshirt this season and play another year of college football, at WSU or elsewhere. But whatever the reasoning, coaches will have to make a decision at QB for the bowl game, which does not count against the four games allotted to redshirt players.
On Monday, Dickert indicated Eckhaus would play QB for the Holiday Bowl.
“I’m excited for this opportunity for Zevi,” Dickert said. “He’s done a really good job throughout the course of the season, being a great leader, being a great teammate, staying really positive, being a backup, and he’s really excited about that opportunity for him.”
Mateer, a redshirt sophomore, earned the starting role for this season and made the most of it. For the season, he completed 224 of 347 passes (65%) for 3,139 yards, 29 touchdowns and 7 interceptions, leading WSU to wins over rival Washington, Texas Tech and a comeback road victory over San Diego State. He also helped the Cougs hang on for a double-overtime win over San Jose State in September.
A native of Dallas-area Little Elm, Mateer backed up former WSU QB Cam Ward for the 2022 and 2023 seasons, Mateer’s true freshman and redshirt freshman years, respectively. Last offseason — when Ward entered the portal and decamped for Miami, where he became a Heisman Trophy finalist — Mateer figured to be the next Cougar quarterback to ascend and take the reins.
Mateer delivered. He wobbled a bit in his first few games, tossing six interceptions in his first six outings, but he steadied himself for the rest of the season. The first dual-threat QB at WSU in a long time, Mateer used his arm and his legs to propel the Cougs to an 8-1 start to the season, rising as high as No. 18 in the College Football Playoff rankings.
WSU’s season ended on a three-game skid, complete with losses to New Mexico, Oregon State and Wyoming. Mateer was solid in the first two, leading the Cougs to 35- and 38-point scoring outings, respectively. But his last game at WSU was likely his worst: He couldn’t lead the offense to any points in the second half, misfiring on each of his final five passes, and the unit scuffled all night.
Still, Mateer’s time as a Coug will likely be remembered fondly. He delivered the program its second Apple Cup win in four seasons, and though WSU missed a real opportunity to make the College Football Playoff on a largely Mountain West schedule, Mateer almost always did his part.
On Sunday night, when Mateer told Dickert he would be entering the portal, he told Dickert he appreciated the program and what it did for his career.
“Obviously disappointed. Disappointed,” Dickert said. “It’s a tough result. Really thankful for Cougs everywhere that poured into everything that it took to try to keep him here. But at the end of the day, he wanted to play on a bigger stage, and I think that was the main cause of most of this.”
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