NORMAN, Okla. (AP) \u2014 John Mateer passed for 392 yards and three touchdowns in a record-setting first game at Oklahoma, and the 18th-ranked Sooners beat Illinois State 35-3 on Saturday night.<\/p>\n
Mateer, a transfer from Washington State, set the school record for most yards passing in an Oklahoma debut, surpassing Baker Mayfield’s 388 yards against Akron in 2015.<\/p>\n
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Keontez Lewis, a transfer from Southern Illinois, had nine catches for 119 yards and two touchdowns for Oklahoma. Jaren Kanak, a converted linebacker, had five catches for 90 yards.<\/p>\n
Deion Burks added seven catches for 88 yards and a score for Oklahoma, which gained 495 yards in Ben Arbuckle’s first game as offensive coordinator.<\/p>\n
The Sooners allowed just 151 total yards, including 34 yards passing, with head coach Brent Venables as the defensive play-caller. He took over after his previous play-caller, Zac Alley, left to become defensive coordinator at West Virginia.<\/p>\n
Wright Wenkers had 50 yards on seven carries for Illinois State. The FCS Redbirds’ only points came on a field goal after Mateer threw an interception deep in his team’s territory in the third quarter.<\/p>\n
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The takeaway<\/p>\n
Illinois State: The Redbirds were solid \u2014 they didn’t turn the ball over and didn’t get blown out too badly. They were a playoff team last season, and they appear capable of getting there again.<\/p>\n
Oklahoma: The Sooners moved the ball, but they gained just 103 yards rushing on 32 carries. That will need to improve against a rugged schedule.<\/p>\n
Up next<\/p>\n
Illinois State: Hosts Morehead State on Sept. 6.<\/p>\n
Oklahoma: Hosts No. 14 Michigan on Sept. 6.<\/p>\n
___<\/p>\n
Get poll alerts and updates on the AP Top 25 throughout the season. Sign up here<\/a>. AP college football: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/ap-top-25-college-football-poll<\/a> and https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/college-football<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NORMAN, Okla. (AP) \u2014 John Mateer passed for 392 yards and three touchdowns in a record-setting first game…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":121894,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[67],"tags":[1802,58828,78151,399,60669,78150,14352,78149,1303,398,396,397,51590,60670,37538,99,14353,7943],"class_list":["post-121893","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ncaa-football","tag-baker-mayfield","tag-ben-arbuckle","tag-deion-burks","tag-football","tag-illinois-state","tag-jaren-kanak","tag-john-mateer","tag-keontez-lewis","tag-michigan","tag-ncaa","tag-ncaa-football","tag-ncaafootball","tag-okla","tag-sooners","tag-southern-illinois","tag-sports","tag-washington-state","tag-west-virginia"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/121893","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=121893"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/121893\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/121894"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=121893"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=121893"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=121893"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}