PULLMAN – Washington State has its man for this season.
The Cougars will start redshirt sophomore quarterback John Mateer for their Aug. 31 season-opener against Portland State, head coach Jake Dickert announced Monday evening, ending a competition with FCS Bryant transfer Zevi Eckhaus that spanned from March to August.
“John’s intangible pieces, what he can do with his feet, what he can do off-script, his big arm,” Dickert said of what went into the decision. “I think more importantly, John is gonna get exponentially better. The John Mateer that you see Game 1, every time he’s out there, going through Gesa Field and what we’re gonna ask him to do, he’s gonna get so much better week to week. Excited about him leading our team.”
Mateer, who backed up former WSU QB Cam Ward each of the previous two seasons, now gets his chance to take over the reins of offensive coordinator Ben Arbuckle’s offense. Mateer played all 12 games last season, used most often as a rushing threat off the bench, also completing 13 of 17 passes for 235 yards, 2 touchdowns and 1 interception.
Mateer redshirted in 2021, appearing in one game, a win over Stanford. In that one, he completed 2 of 2 passes with a 27-yard touchdown pass, plus four carries for 58 yards.
A native of Little Elm, Texas (just outside the Dallas area), Mateer won the job by checking off the boxes Dickert and Arbuckle wanted to see during the two-plus weeks of fall camp: He limited turnovers, flourished as a natural leader, made the right calls at the line of scrimmage and made accurate throws to the Cougs receivers.
“I think it was a good battle throughout camp. I do wanna say that,” Mateer said. “(Eckhaus) pushed me really well every day. It’s not because I was doing better than him, but individually, I just felt like I was getting really good and I was improving every day.”
Mateer learned the news Sunday, a deadline of which he and Eckhaus were aware, knowing their final evaluation period was Saturday’s scrimmage. On Sunday morning, Mateer got a text from chief of staff Brent Vernon, asking if he could meet with Dickert at 12:30 p.m. Yes, Mateer replied, and he walked into Dickert’s office around that time.
They sat on the plush couches and chatted for a bit, Mateer said, before Dickert told him the news. He felt relieved, just not as much as he expected. After he walked out, he tried to call his dad, Steve. No answer – probably because he was driving to go camping in Colorado, Mateer figured.
So Mateer called his mom, Judy, who picked up.
“First thing she said was, ‘Thank God,’ ” Mateer said, “which is a great reflection of who she is, who I try to be.”
The competition was close, Dickert said, but he and Arbuckle began to notice separation between Mateer and Eckhaus during Week 2 of fall camp, which started Aug. 5.
“I think that’s when Zev probably pressed a little bit,” Dickert said, “and John’s deep ball, what he could do with different things kinda came to light. But it was a close battle. That’s exactly what we thought it would be.”
Finishing second in the quarterback competition was Eckhaus, who set records in three years as a starter at Bryant, an FCS school in Rhode Island. He originally signed with Jacksonville State out of the transfer portal, but because transfer players don’t enter binding agreements until they enroll in classes at their new school, Eckhaus was able to flip to WSU in January.
Both Mateer and Eckhaus endured their fair share of turnovers during fall camp, but Eckhaus’ inability to avoid costly interceptions ended up making a difference.
“We just gotta get him out of – every practice he has one of those throws he regrets, and then he kinda snaps back out of it,” Dickert said of Eckhaus after one practice last week.
Mateer will get the opportunity to guide WSU, one of two holdovers in the collapsed Pac-12, into uncharted territory. The Cougars are playing eight Mountain West Conference teams this season, two via previously contracted games and six via a scheduling agreement with the conference, which will not allow WSU (or Oregon State) to win any Mountain West awards.
The Cougs’ season-opener against FCS Portland State is set for noon Aug. 31 at Gesa Field in Pullman. The CW Network will broadcast the game.
For Mateer, it’s the reward not only for sticking around during Ward’s tenure, but also for trusting former WSU offensive coordinator Eric Morris about the opportunity in Pullman in the first place.
In high school at Little Elm, Mateer was a four-year starter. He threw for a school-record 2,449 yards as a senior, which eclipsed the previous record – which he had set the year prior. He also logged 23 passing touchdowns and 15 more on the ground, earning a three-star rating from 247 Sports and ESPN.
For a guy whose dream was always to play at a Power 5 school, though, Mateer wasn’t seeing the results he wanted in recruiting. In fact, he was planning on enrolling at FCS Central Arkansas for some time.
“I was like, what do I have to do?” Mateer said.
The dream stuck with him all throughout high school. As a sophomore, he wrote in his notebook schools he would like to play at, realistic or not, just places that came to him: Texas. TCU. Kansas.
“Then Washington State,” Mateer said. “It was random. Crazy how it happened. Truly blessed to be in this position, and it should be a lot of fun.”
