Brent Venables on Oklahoma's QB: 'Everything is on the Table'

NORMAN — A day after making a change at offensive coordinator, Oklahoma coach Brent Venables wasn’t ready to make any declarations about who would be the Sooners’ starting quarterback moving forward.

“Everything’s on the table,” Venables said at his weekly press conference Tuesday when asked about the position.

Monday, Venables fired offensive coordinator Ben Arbuckle in the middle of his second season, elevated tight ends coach Jason Witten to interim offensive coordinator.

While that won’t necessarily translate into a different look at quarterback, even Venables’ openness toward a potential change was a shift from his position on the quarterback at other points this season after John Mateer has struggled.

Mateer has completed 65.6% of his passes for 1,835 yards and 13 touchdowns with seven interceptions. He’s run for just 145 yards with no touchdowns.

In Saturday’s 42-25 loss to South Carolina, Mateer was 26 of 43 for 244 yards and two touchdowns.

The numbers, on the surface, don’t look bad at all, but much of the positive production came in the fourth quarter when the game was well in hand for the Gamecocks.

Going into the fourth quarter of that game, Mateer was 10 of 18 for just 47 yards through the air.

With the switch to Witten, Venables appears more open to a change.

“Everybody has a fresh start, fresh slate with the change,” Venables said. “We’ll see where all of that goes.”

The two options to start at quarterback outside of Mateer are Whitt Newbauer and Bowe Bentley.

Neither has appeared in a game since the Sept. 4 season opener against UTEP.

In that game, Newbauer completed his lone pass for six yards and had a three-yard touchdown run.

Bentley, a freshman, missed on his only throw and took a two-yard loss on his only run.

The Sooners have had few chances to insert either of the two since.

Oklahoma was blown out by Georgia, 41-13, on Sept. 26 in what was Mateer’s worst game of the season.

But still, Mateer remained in the game in the second half.

The most likely place for Newbauer or Bentley to appear figured to be Saturday when Oklahoma fell behind 42-16 early in the fourth quarter.

“We talked about everything on the headset tonight,” Arbuckle said after what proved to be his final game. “But then we rattled off three scoring drives and the way it was going it didn’t feel like the right time.”

The Sooners play at Florida at 6:45 p.m. Saturday in Gainesville.

Who will be the starting quarterback for the Sooners in The Swamp remains to be seen.

“We’ll see where all that goes from here,” Venables said.

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