Texas Bowl Brings End to a Long College Football Journey for Dru Brown

Dru Brown will play his final college football game on Friday night, and his path to get to a Texas Bowl finale was anything but conventional.

Starting in high school at Los Gatos, California and then north to San Mateo, Calif., where he played a season at the junior college level, Brown’s college football journey has included two-year stints in Hawaii and Stillwater, Oklahoma, just to end in Houston, Texas.

Oklahoma State offered opportunity to compete for a starting spot immediately, but instead Brown played second fiddle to Taylor Cornelius and then Spencer Sanders, until injury saw his number called. But he was always ready.

Despite his relegation to QB2, Brown did everything asked of him and more. On Thursday during his pre-Texas Bowl press conference, Mike Gundy alluded to the harmony inside OSU’s quarterback meeting room when such a competition has the potential to get personal, and credited a lot of that to Brown.

And when the Cowboys needed him on the field, Brown was ready.

In Sanders’ injury absence in the second half against Kansas and in starts against West Virginia and Oklahoma, Brown was able to effectively run the offense completing 71.2 percent of his throws for 473 yards and three touchdowns. He only threw one interception all season. His numbers weren’t exactly eye-popping but he was efficient while the Cowboys’ attack ran through Chuba Hubbard.

A dependable, veteran backup QB is a luxury for any team, especially in this day and age, and in the world we live.

“Dru has been awesome,” Mike Gundy said on Thursday. “He’s competed. He’s studied tape. He’s worked hard in a very, very difficult situation.

“Unfortunately, at the quarterback position in most cases, we only play one, and that’s why you’re seeing so many young men transfer at that position. The other spots, we play multiple guys. They rotate in. He’s been awesome.”

Last week Gundy confirmed that, while Spencer Sanders was a back to full speed, both he and Brown would play in Friday night’s Texas Bowl tilt with Texas A&M.

How exactly both quarterbacks figure into the Texas Bowl gameplan is the type of thing Gundy likes to play close to the vest. “I don’t know that,” he said when asked about it last week. “That part we don’t know.”

Regardless of whether he plays 30 snaps behind center or is the featured piece of some trick play, Brown will get to a chance to end his career on a high note and with the teammates who hold him in such high regard.

“For the team to have enough respect for him to vote him captain when he’s really only played in a couple games says a lot about him,” Gundy said. “He’s mentioned at one point of wanting to get into coaching. He put himself in a great position to get into coaching.”

Brown’s long and winding college football journey will come to an end on Friday night. Although its final leg, which ran through Stillwater, probably didn’t play out as he planned, he’s definitely left his mark at Oklahoma State.