Three years ago, he was a face along for the ride, watching in awe as the greatest season in college football history played out at his position, on his team.

And for a moment, earlier in his LSU career, his job.

I asked Myles Brennan then in the early days of 2020, as his LSU teammates were celebrating a national title and Joe Burrow was iconically smoking a winning stogie two lockers down from Brennan, what he learned from 2 years of watching someone else play the position better than any college player ever has.

“I learned how much I love this university,” he said.

That’s what it has always been for Myles Brennan. It’s why he never left LSU when he could’ve and probably should’ve. It’s why when he finally did late last November and entered the transfer portal, he came back a month later when new coach Brian Kelly asked him to take one more chance to right his star-crossed career at LSU.

It’s why on Monday he walked away from football for good.

It’s a horror story for the ages, everyone. Recruited over twice in his LSU career (Burrow and Jayden Daniels) when he was in line to win the job, and twice sustaining season-ending injuries (2020-21) when he had it.

Now he’s finally walking away, told this weekend by Kelly that he wasn’t in the plans moving forward in the 3-way quarterback competition. Six years, multiple serious injuries and 13 career touchdowns later, he’s still an LSU graduate.

As hokey and corny as it sounds in this age of brands and NIL deals and pay me now or someone else will, that’s something to hold onto through yet another football gut-punch.

“One day, I will graduate from this university and everything I’ve learned and how I’ve grown will be so important in my life moving forward,” Brennan continued to explain that day in the din of the championship locker room. “I want to play football. I want to be great. But I know this was the plan for me. I know I needed to truly appreciate what I had.”

There are hundreds of these stories every season in college football. Players don’t make an immediate impact, then get lost in the shuffle, then finally find their way back. Happens over and over and over.

Some make it all the way back, while others take their 50-pound weight gain to get ready to play, multiple serious injuries — and just plain bad luck — and walk away.

When Brennan sustained the core injury in his first season as a starter — a season in 2020 that was almost never played because of a global pandemic — it was such an awful muscle tear from the pelvic bone and hip, that his doctor told him he had made medical history.

If he had surgery to repair the injury, his doctor offered to name it after him. Brennan decided to rehab and avoid surgery, and he was ready to start again in 2021 before a freak accident while fishing in the summer led to a broken left arm and the loss of another season.

Then Kelly arrived and convinced Brennan to leave the transfer portal and come back to LSU. It wasn’t a difficult decision.

There was Brennan, talented redshirt freshman Garrett Nussmeier and true freshman Walker Howard. And, of course, there was LSU.

A few months later, there was Daniels, too. Suddenly, the road to redemption was again filled with plenty of obstacles. Still, Brennan was resolute. This is what he wanted.

“This is how the story has to end,” he said during spring drills.

It ended in the third week of fall camp, with Daniels taking control of the starting job and Nussmeier playing well enough to start, too, before sustaining an ankle injury that won’t keep him out much longer.

There are only so many reps to get a starter ready to play, much less 2 potential starters. Brennan, again, was the odd man out.

“I really fought it, that decision to sign Jayden (Daniels),” Kelly told me at SEC Media Days in July. “It wasn’t easy.”

But it’s also what had to be done. Nussmeier, while uber-talented, is still raw. Howard likely isn’t ready to play, and — fair or not — Brennan has a history of injuries.

Kelly had to sign another quarterback with experience. He knew the competition would make everyone better — and knew it would eventually make 2 of the 3 disappointed.

“The nature of the position,” Kelly said. “You choose the guy who you think will give you the best opportunity to go win. It’s not rocket science.”

That doesn’t make it any easier on the 6th-year senior who graduated 18 months ago from the university he loves and wanted one more shot at Saturday night in Baton Rouge.

One more shot at his job.