Oklahoma OL McKade Mettauer Keeps Surprising Himself
NORMAN — McKade Mettauer admits, he has surprised himself since he’s been at Oklahoma.
More than once.
Mettauer grew up in the Houston area and became a three-year starter at Cal. He landed at OU this past offseason via the transfer portal. On Saturday, he'll start his first game for the Sooners as OU takes on UTEP.
Mettauer said Monday after practice that he was surprised at how quickly he slid into a leadership role among the Sooner offensive linemen — thanks largely to the other guys in the group and how they welcomed him.
He also said he was surprised that he was able to fight through a mental “inhibitor” and finish Jerry Schmidt’s summer fitness tests — thanks largely to the punishment runs his mom made him run as a kid.
But he’s not really surprised he no longer throws up before games.
“It’s another day in the office now,” he said.
Becoming a Leader
Mettauer got plenty of game experience at Berkley, but he just assumed that wouldn’t matter to a bunch of guys who had already established themselves in Norman.
That wasn’t the case.
The offensive line group welcomed him with open arms, and he settled in quickly. That allowed him to assume a leadership role even though he was one of the new guys.
“The guys in this group were really … willing to accept me,” Mettauer said. “Their attitude towards me allowed me to put myself in that situation.”
“I love how he works,” said o-line coach Bill Bedenbaugh. “Smart guy. Passionate. He’s been a leader. He came in here and led from the beginning.”
“He’s helped me a ton since he’s been here,” said left tackle Anton Harrison, a returning starter. “Coming from Cal, the experience from everywhere is going to help us tremendously. Him coming in will help everyone on the line get better.”
Mettauer came up wanting to be recruited by Oklahoma, but it just took longer than he expected. When he got the call, he knew the Sooners had lost two starters to the NFL, and he knew the program was undergoing a change in both offensive philosophy and football culture.
He decided to make it happen, a little nervous about being the new kid, a little excited about a fresh start. When winter conditioning started and transitioned into spring practice, Mettauer knew he belonged. He looked around the room and realized he had become a leader among the o-linemen.
“Actually in the spring, I was surprised with how I did that,” he said. “Like, looking back, I'm like, ‘I can't believe I did that. You know, I kind of came in here and did that thing.’ But yeah, I think I've settled into it. And you know, my experience — this is going to be coming on my 29th straight start on Saturday. So I think, you know, my experience has helped me with that.”
Mom’s Summer Camp
Mettauer said he also surprised himself this summer.
Schmidt is famous for using Oklahoma’s 100-degree afternoons to turn flesh into steel. And while Mettauer was apprehensive — who wouldn’t be? — he also found he had something else in him.
Something his mom, Marissa, put there years ago.
“Instead of, you know, grounding me or whatever,” Mettauer said, “I was running laps around the neighborhood. Right?”
As usual, there are a few more details to the story.
“Yeah, so growing up, right before football season, it was two laps every day right after school,” Mettauer said. “And if I got in trouble, she would add laps. Right? I ran six laps one day. It was freaking awful.”
What brought that on?
“I was beating up my brother or something — just something stupid,” he said with a laugh. “But I grew up like that. Then I learned that she was not really punishing me, she was making me better. And that's goes back to Schmitty. Like, I know he's not punishing us. Like, this is going to help us, especially with the offense we run.”
So this summer, when Schmidt and his staff were pushing players to their limit, the 6-foot-4, 305-pound Mettauer — who grew up in the sweltering heat of The Woodlands, TX — quickly went beyond his.
“I’ve surprised myself with how mentally tough I am with some of the stuff we've been doing,” Mettauer said. “Like, we're running like, 20-something sprints, right? Never, ever done that in my life. But there's something about breaking that inhibitor in your brain that has happened here, where you just keep going. It's like, ‘OK, yeah, we're done,’ but honestly, you feel like, ‘OK, I could run 10 more of those.’ ”
Of course Mettauer is fitter than ever, but he said he’s also gained 15 pounds of muscle since coming to Oklahoma.
“We time the gassers and stuff,” he said, “and my gassers have gotten fast. And we’ve been running a lot more. So I think I’ve gotten in a lot better shape.
“Schmitty’s brought that out in me. I didn't know it was there. But he has brought that out in me.”
He said while the sun was melting him and his teammates this summer, he thought a lot about those laps around the neighborhood.
“Yeah, I was calling Mom like, ‘Oh my gosh, yeah, you never made me run this much. But I'm glad that you made me do that stuff.’
“Because now I don’t even think about it. You know, she gave me kind of like the work ethic, I guess.”
No More Puking
When Mettauer was a true freshman at Cal in 2019, he and the Bears played a game at Pac-12 rival Washington. It was his first career start.
“That stadium is one of the loudest in the country,” he said. “Even though it doesn't get a lot of people, it is one of the loudest.”
Mettauer was a nervous wreck. His blocking assignment that day was Levi Onwuzurike, a second-round NFL Draft pick of the Detroit Lions.
“I tell this all the time: the new Post Malone album came out with Ozzy Osbourne, and every time I hear that song, I remember this day,” he said. “I was in the hotel on my knees throwing up in the bathroom because I was so nervous. I was freaking out. Right? The last game I played, I was 18 in high school and in the playoffs. Now I was going against this guy named Levi. … So I had some nerves.”
Mettauer said he also got sick before the Bears played arch rival Stanford. But that was it. On Saturday, when the Sooners open the 2022 season at home against UTEP, he doesn’t expect those nerves to return.
“Now, it’s game like 30 or 29,” he said. “ … I don’t do that any more.”
That doesn’t mean Mettauer will be without emotion on Saturday. All he has to do is think back to the Spring Game to realize what this all means to him now.
“The most people I’ve played in front of was the spring game,” he said.
He said his family was emotional at the scrimmage last spring, trying to take it all in at Oklahoma after three years at California.
“My mom was crying at the game,” he said. “This means a lot. I feel like this is what I was meant to play, in this kind of atmosphere.
“I mean, it's cheesy. But it means everything. I walked out on the spring game and that was the atmosphere I've always wanted to play in front of, right? Growing up in Texas high school football and doing all that stuff, that's what I wanted to play in front of.”
He can’t wait until Saturday, when his family and friends from back home get to meet his new family — all 85,000 of them — at Memorial Stadium. Little brother Mabrey, who's now a 4-star quarterback recruit at The Woodlands, has games on Friday nights, but his parents will be there, along with a cousin and a physical therapist friend and some former students from his high school.
It's all part of the culture change Mettauer continues to experience from Cal to OU.
“The fans, and the love that I had there (at the spring game)," Mettauer said, "random people just going ‘McKade, what’s up? You like that school in California?’ You guys know who I am? I signed maybe one or two autographs in California. I ran out of ink in my pen (at OU). It’s freaking awesome. This means everything.”
