As most have said, a month is a reasonable time frame if it's truly just a broken metacarpal and not further damage. 2.5 weeks against Texas isn't impossible, but it's not something to hold out hope for.
At the end of the day, if we can find a way to split with UT and SC, we're sitting pretty at 6-1 if Mateer is fully healthy. Given the injury sympathy, we'd essentially be a lock for the playoffs at 9-3.
You never want to see your QB1 go down for a month, but this is literally the best time of the year to have it happen, with basically 2.5 weeks until our first game. Kent State is a win either way, and quite frankly, even with Mateer we were going to have our hands full against Texas. I never want to lose to Texas under any circumstances, and am not saying we necessarily will, but if we're going to do it, I'd rather it be with our backup QB. Hawkins looked completely lost in limited reps against Temple, but there is a world where 2.5 weeks of UT prep could catch them off guard especially knowing BV will be floating the possibility of Mateer returning all week so that they don't know who to prep for.
Honestly the roughest games to be without Mateer are the ones like Michigan, Auburn, SC, and MIzzou. In those we can quickly flip from favorites to underdogs without Mateer.
