If there is a name for the 2024 Washington State football season, it would have to include John Mateer’s name in some way. Even, like on Saturday and the two weeks before, the narrow defeats.

After all, the sophomore quarterback, who was a question mark early in the season, left his fingerprints all over the Cougars’ 8-4 regular season – including Saturday night’s last-minute 15-14 loss to a 3-9 Group from Wyoming ahead of a quiet Thanksgiving weekend crowd of 17,088 at Gesa Field.

It wasn’t Mateer’s best game — his overall offense numbers were his third-worst — and he failed to get WSU into the end zone in the second half.

During the Cougars’ third straight loss, former WSU quarterback Ryan Leaf in his analyst role on the CW Network and his play-by-play partner Ted Robinson spoke glowingly of Mateer’s exceptional season, with Leaf even touting his allegiance to the Heisman Trophy.

What we all saw

• How good was Mateer? To get an answer, we asked a few people who have played the position in the Pac-12 and have watched the Cougars closely this season. In order to receive honest feedback, both were allowed to express their opinions without attribution.

The verdict? He’s really good. A strong arm, a physical runner, a fast-twitch athlete. And he had as big an impact on his team’s success as any quarterback in the country.

But there are also fundamental flaws in his passing game that have held him – and the Cougars – back somewhat. Imperfections that Mateer worked on and improved over the course of the season.

The background to all this? Saturday’s loss was just Mateer’s 12th collegiate start in which he has led Washington State to eight wins.

But is he the best quarterback in college football, a position Leaf staked out a few weeks ago and reiterated during the CW’s pregame show?

“I don’t think the national card really allowed him to be there,” Leaf said as we watched a video of Mateer warming up. “And that’s the unfortunate thing. We’ll take a close look at what he did this year, but he was the reason Washington State is in the (national) conversation.

“He was the leader. He was the general. Honestly, he was the best quarterback in all of college football this season.”

The CW ran a graphic in the second half that favorably compared Mateer’s stats to those of former WSU star Cam Ward, now Miami star, and Oregon’s Dillion Gabriel. This was accompanied by Leaf using the numbers to support his argument. However, he ignored that Ward and Gabriel played in Power Four conferences while Mateer played primarily against Mountain West opponents.

However, no one can deny Mateer’s importance to the Cougars’ success.

How important?

Mateer’s numbers are impressive. He threw for 3,139 yards, ran for another 826 yards and accounted for 44 of the Cougars’ 57 touchdowns. But those numbers don’t show the full extent of his impact on WSU’s offense.

Leaf addressed it midway through the second quarter, comparing Mateer to Boise State’s Heisman candidate, running back Ashton Jeanty.

“Jeanty is the Heisman Trophy winner for me,” Leaf said after he and Robinson lamented Mateer’s lack of participation in the race. “He was the best player in college football. If he’s not on this football team, Boise State is nowhere near where they are.

“Same difference here in Pullman. If John Mateer isn’t on this football team, Washington State doesn’t have anywhere near nine wins.”

Robinson agreed, calling the competition between the two “fabulous.”

Robinson had already informed viewers that Mateer led the nation in touchdown totals (passing and running) after a 37-yard screen pass touchdown in the first quarter to Kyle Williams.

• Mateer’s passing game is unorthodox to say the least. Many current quarterbacks play the ball from a variety of arm slots. Mateer has demonstrated the ability to play the ball from any position he wants, although his baseball experience means he seems to prefer playing with a sidearm.

This can cause problems for him. When? According to a former quarterback, Mateer’s job is to get the ball into the hole between the linebackers and the safeties. Throwing a sidearm can cause the ball to sail, which happened a lot earlier in the year. But not so much anymore.

Part of it is better mechanics. According to one observer, that’s partly because offensive coordinator Ben Arbuckle is calling fewer passes in that area.

Another strain on Mateer’s delivery has to do with his legs. One quarterback mentioned that the hits Mateer takes while running the ball tests his ability to keep his throwing form intact. A run with three or four big hits makes it more difficult to make a timely and accurate throw afterwards. Here too, fewer such pieces have been called up recently.

• The Pac-12 thinks it belongs in the power conference category, right? Then what happened with 4 minutes and 49 seconds left in the first quarter must never happen again.

Wyoming quarterback Evan Svoboda made it to first-and-10 from the WSU 38. Svoboda skated to right, where he was ousted by WSU’s Tanner Moku on the 35th. But after he got out, he ran over linesman Rich Troyer, who was out of bounds at the 40 mark. The referee agreed and the game continued.

With one second and 13? No. Referee John Love’s team marked the ball at the 39 for an unknown reason, and the replay booth, which can report, did not do so. And the extra yardage helped keep Wyoming’s first scoring drive – the Cowboys made a 40-yard field goal – alive. In a one-point game, the obvious missed pitch played a role in the outcome.

It was just one of many glaring errors that resulted in players being left behind by as much as a meter over the course of the game.