Now that he’s enrolled and on the football team at Texas Tech, Michael Brewer can go through winter conditioning and spring workouts. Theoretically, he can compete, too, for the quarterback job left open by the departures of Taylor Potts and Steven Sheffield.

Realistically, the freshman from Austin Lake Travis knows odds are against him making a quick impact. Junior Seth Doege, sophomore Jacob Karam and redshirt freshman Scotty Young are angling for the job, too.

“There’s three older guys ahead of me, all great quarterbacks, so nothing’s going to come easy,” Brewer said. “Nothing’s going to be handed to me. I understand I’m going to be behind to start out and going to need to work my way up, but we’ll jump into spring and see how it goes.”

Brewer was introduced to the media Friday in Jones AT&T Stadium’s Masked Rider lobby. Before that, he was last seen four weeks ago in Arlington, leading Austin Lake Travis to yet another state championship. The Cavaliers have won four state titles in a row, and Brewer was quarterback for the last two, capping seasons in which the team went a composite 30-2.

Brewer downplayed what that means going forward, but acknowledged that coming from a winning program counts for something.

“I understand that anything I’ve accomplished — as well as my team — in the past has no correlation to what’s going to happen here,” he said. “But being able to understand what it takes to win ballgames is something I’ve always grown up around being in Lake Travis, and I feel like that’ll help me out in the long run.”

Brewer’s not the biggest quarterback around at 6-foot-1 and 180 pounds, but he brings substantial credentials. As a junior, he passed for 4,450 yards and 43 touchdowns. This season, when he missed games with a shoulder injury, he threw for 2,865 yards and 26 TDs.

Tech offensive coordinator Neal Brown said this season that he’s looking for a passer first at quarterback, but doesn’t mind having a mobile guy behind center.

Brewer was a dual threat in high school, rushing for 615 yards and 23 touchdowns his junior year and for 743 yards his senior year. He ran for two touchdowns in Lake Travis’ 27-7 conquest of Denton Ryan in the Class 4A Division I championship game.

“A lot of it was zone reads — reading the defensive end, reading the defensive tackle,” Brewer said. “A lot of them were called runs also, or just having the ability to turn something out of nothing and scramble.”

As easily persuaded recruits go, Brewer ranks at or near the top of this year’s class. He was not only committed to Tech for nearly a year, but he also stayed in touch with other recruits, successfully persuading some to join him at Tech.

“I committed at the beginning of March, and after that I tried to surround myself with guys that I like playing with and would help this team win ballgames,” he said. “I started doing that, and then they started doing it and it just kind of caught fire.”

Their day will come. Brewer’s not sure when it might be in his case, but he’s willing to be patient.

“Redshirt or not, I’ll be happy with whatever the decision is by coach (Tommy) Tuberville and coach Brown,” he said. “If I’m going to play, then I’d like to play a lot, and if not then I’d like to redshirt. I think we have the same idea with that, so we’ll see what happens.”