OU to face Baylor
Bud Wilkinson tried to talk the original Charlie Brewer into becoming a Sooner. Seemed like a good match. Brewer had led Lubbock High to the Texas state championship in 1951, and his older brother, George, was a halfback on Wilkinson’s late ‘40s teams at OU. If the original Charlie Brewer had signed on with the Sooners, who knows how football south of the Red River would have changed? Brewer wouldn’t have quarterbacked Texas in 1953 and 1954, which included a victory over a Bear Bryant-coached Texas A&M in the latter year. And maybe Brewer’s son, Robert, wouldn’t have gone to Texas without a scholarship, eventually won the Longhorn quarterback job and fashioned a 13-2 record, including a Cotton Bowl victory over a Bear Bryant-coached Alabama in 1982. Maybe Robert Brewer wouldn’t have settled in Austin, raising three sons, two of which became Big 12 quarterbacks— Michael at Texas Tech (and Virginia Tech) and Charlie at Baylor. But the original Charlie Brewer did indeed become a Longhorn, and the Brewer quarterback legacy spread all over Texas. “The genes are flowing,” the original Charlie Brewer, 83, said this week from his Dallas home. And now the OU-Baylor game Saturday at Owen Field matches quarterbacks whose fathers quarterbacked at a similar level— Kevin Murray, father of OU’s Kyler Murray, was an iconic Texas A&M quarterback in the 1980s. “Guys like that, they understand some of the ups and downs, some of what it takes to be really good,”
Lincoln Riley said. “It’s not new to them. I wouldn’t go as far to say it creeps into their blood, that’s probably a little dramatic. But as they were in the backyard playing ball, it was how dad’s taught you is how dad did it and the things he had to go through.”
Murray and Brewer both were state championship quarterbacks at marquee Texas high schools— Murray at Allen, Brewer at Lake Travis, the quarterback factory that produced Baker Mayfield, Garrett Gilbert and Todd Reesing, along with the Brewer brothers.
“When you’re the quarterback, you’re going to get the most praise and you’re going to get the most criticism,” Baylor coach Matt Rhule said. “That’s really what makes or breaks a lot of guys. For Charlie, he’s seen that. He knows the mental toughness you have to have. We credit that to his family and growing up around the position.”
The Brewer quarterback roots even go further. Robert Brewer married the sister of Rob Moerschell, Brewer’s Texas backup in 1982 and who was 9-0 as the Longhorn starting QB in 1983.
It all goes back to Lubbock. The original Charlie Brewer’s oldest brother, the original Robert, played a year at Texas Tech, then entered the military and was killed in World War II. George Brewer spent a semester running track at his hometown Tech but transferred to OU— he famously was picked up at the Oklahoma City airport by then-assistant coach Wilkinson and asked what position Wilkinson played for the Sooners. George Brewer started at halfback on the 1947 team, Wilkinson’s first, before a broken leg in 1948 limited the rest of his career.
“So that’s kind of how all this started,” the original Charlie Brewer said. “We’re blessed to have all these kids and this excitement. Been a great life for us.”
There’s one more root of this family tree. The original Charlie Brewer has another son, John, who was on the Longhorn football team but was just 5-foot-9 and never played much.
John Brewer has a son, Bo Brewer, who is the quarterback at J.J. Pearce High School in the Dallas suburb of Richardson. The last couple of years, John Brewer has hired a private quarterback tutor for his son.
Kevin Murray.