Myles Brennan Steps Away from Football

Man. That was the first thing that came to my mind when I heard that Myles Brennan decided to leave football. This guy has gone through so much throughout his career and decided to try one more shot at the starting job. Unfortunately, he learned that he wasn’t going to get it and decided it was time to leave football behind. It’s not like he won’t be successful in his life, he’s got a whole family restaurant empire to fall back on for a career and a wonderful fiancé he can’t wait to spend his life with. Still, you can’t help but feel sorry for him, he just wasn’t the same QB he was before the injuries from the past two seasons. He may go down as one of the unluckiest players in LSU history, but he’ll certainly live on as a legend.

Before LSU

247sports ranked Brennan a 4-star prospect and the 6^th-best pro-style QB coming out of St. Stanislaus College in Mississippi in 2017. He set state high school records for career passing yards, passing TDs and total offense and competed in the Elite 11 passing camp in 2016, at which he finished 2^nd. He committed to LSU in 2016 as maybe one of the best, if not the best, QBs LSU had ever signed.

Freshman Season (2017)

Brennan came into his freshman season with an opportunity to compete for the starting QB spot. The young QB got playing time, but it was transfer QB Danny Etling who earned the starting role. Brennan played in six games, going 14/24 for 182 yards, 1 TD and 2 INTs. Luckily, Brennan would earn another chance at the starting role.

Sophomore Season (2018)

Unfortunately, LSU decided to bring in another transfer QB from a Big 10 school. Joe Burrow came in and impressed enough to earn the starting job. The NCAA approved a new rule allowing players to redshirt if they played in four or fewer games in a season, so that’s what Brennan did. He played in just one game, the home finale against Rice, going 4/6 for 65 yards.

Redshirt Sophomore Season (2019)

Burrow came back in 2019, leaving Brennan as the back-up. However, LSU did 2019 LSU things and gave Brennan several chances to come in and get some mop-up duty. He played in 10 games, finishing 24/40 for 353 yards, 1 TD and 1 INT. He earned a ring as part of the greatest team in the sport’s history, next year was his chance to get the starting and live up to his hype.

Junior Season (2020)

Brennan earned the 2020 starting QB role, though he didn’t have too much competition because the other two QBs behind him were true freshmen T.J. Finley and Max Johnson. Brennan’s first start was a loss to Mississippi State in which he had a sub-par performance, but he bounced back against Vanderbilt and Missouri. However, he suffered an injury on the second drive in Columbia that doctors didn’t know how to treat because they didn’t know the human body could do that. Brennan never returned in 2020. We didn’t know it at the time, but the last we’d see of Myles Brennan as an LSU QB came in a game displaced from its home in a season displaced from logic in a year displaced from time.

Senior Season (2021)

Brennan graduated with a degree in sports administration in May 2021 and looked poised to be the starting QB in what was likely going to be his final season at LSU. He’d recovered from his injury, he was doing well in spring camp, he’d signed NIL deals with Walk On’s and Hollingsworth Richards Ford, everything was looking up. A few days before the start of training camp, Myles Brennan decided to sneak in one more fishing trip, and as he was carrying equipment on the dock, he fell. A flip-flop caught in a loose board tripped Brennan, and what he shook off as a nasty bruise that day ended up diagnosed as a season-ending compound fracture. He announced that he was entering the transfer portal in November, but Brian Kelly convinced him to come back.

2022

Brennan’s performance in the 2022 spring game showed that he wasn’t the same guy he was before the injuries. Jayden Daniels transferred in from Arizona State and Garrett Nussmeier was still on the roster and by the fall preseason, it became apparent that Brennan wasn’t a leader in the battle for the starting spot. After being informed he wouldn’t be the starter, Brennan decided it was time to step away from football.

Conclusion

This is an unfortunate end to what could’ve been a legendary career. Brennan’s stats in his three career starts were 79/131 for 1,112 yards, 11 TDs and 3 INTs. He was a leader in the locker room, a hard worker, a guy who put everything he could into the game even though the game spit back in his face. I hope he leaves this game with his head held high because he succeeded. He is successful beyond wins and losses. He’s left a positive impact on his teammates, his coaches and his university, plus he got to propose at midfield of Tiger Stadium with a camera crew filming the moment.

Myles Brennan went through Hell at the end of his football career. While it may suck, it’s nice to know that he’ll be coming out on the other side.