NC State quarterback Brennan Armstrong at ACC Kickoff again, with a whole new outlook

6-8 minutes 7/27/2023
Brennan Armstrong, neatly dressed in a coat and tie, sat at a podium at the Westin hotel talking about the demands of playing quarterback in the ACC.
“I’ve got to be the guy to step up and put points on the board,” he said. “I know what I’m capable of. We’ve just got to dial it in.”
That was at the 2022 ACC Football Kickoff. Armstrong wore a Virginia lapel pin.
Flash forward a year. Armstrong was back at the 2023 ACC Kickoff on Thursday, but this time representing N.C. State, wearing a Wolfpack pin.
Welcome to the new age of college athletics, where what you see one year may not be the same the next, where an opposing QB1 can become your QB1 as fast as you can say “transfer portal.”
Armstrong, 23, was making his third consecutive appearance at the ACC Kickoff, and as he put it, “Doing it with three different coaches.” He rattled them off: Bronco Mendenhall, Tony Elliott and now the Pack’s Dave Doeren.
A year ago, Armstrong was coming off a record-setting 2021 season at Virginia that produced some dazzling numbers: 4,449 passing yards and 31 touchdowns. He threw for 364 yards against North Carolina, in the first half, and finished with a school-record 554 and four TDs, albeit in a loss.
The left-handed QB also came to Charlotte last year with a new head coach, Elliott, and new offensive coordinator, Des Kitchings. Armstrong had just spent time at the Manning Passing Academy in Louisiana, hanging out with Peyton and Eli and a group of college quarterbacks that included Devin Leary of N.C. State.
A year later, Leary is gone to Kentucky and Armstrong looking to re-establish himself with the Wolfpack, transferring and reuniting with his former offensive coordinator, Robert Anae, and ready for a fresh start in Anae’s system, which Armstrong calls “quarterback friendly.”
“I think he knows what he’s going to get out of me, and I know what I’m going to get from him, his thoughts,” Armstrong said in an N&O interview.. “I think that jells well.
“What he does for me, speaking as a quarterback in this offense, I’m just free. He does a good job in how he coaches. He frees up the quarterback and lets me just play the game and have fun. It gives me a lot of options. All it comes down to is me making the right decisions.”
Armstrong grinned, adding, “I felt like I did that in ‘21 and hopefully we can get back to that in ‘23.”
When offensive coordinator Tim Beck left after last season, Pack coach Dave Doeren made the move to bring in Anae, who he said ranks “in the top 10% of college football in creativity.” Anae was at Syracuse last year, having left Virginia when Mendenhall stepped away from football following the 2021 season.
Armstrong, a graduate student, was not in the portal for long, his move to N.C. State a no-brainer. He also has been an easy for the program — “He just his head down and went to work,” Doeren said Thursday.
Junior cornerback Aydan White, a first-team All-ACC pick last season, said Armstrong has been a “great dude.”
“Sometimes, you have transfers who come in with the big head,” White said Thursday in an N&O interview. “Brennan came in wanting to learn how we operate and how our culture is. I feel like he’s gathered what we have and he’s become one of the big leaders that we need at quarterback.”
The 2022 season was challenging for Armstrong and was tragic for the Virginia program, for the university. Armstrong’s offensive production dipped significantly — 2,210 passing yards, seven touchdowns, 12 interceptions — but that meant little, seemed so trivial, after three of his Virginia teammates were killed in a shooting incident on Nov. 13 in Charlottesville.
Everyone was left devastated after the deaths of Devin Chandler, D’Sean Perry and Lavel Davis Jr. Two other Virginia students were wounded. There was grief and sorrow and anger.
“I won’t ever forget that day and won’t ever forget the men who died, my teammates,” Armstrong told the N&O. “I think the greatest thing was we were able to go as a team to the funerals. I tell you what, the way they celebrated their lives … even though we were at a funeral, with the families and us as a team being there, celebrating their lives was amazing, awesome.
“You had so many emotions at the time and to able to sit back and see their families celebrate their lives the way they did, it was like ‘Wow.’ It gives you a sigh of relief.”
At the same time, Armstrong said, the lives of three young men ended so abruptly, so sadly.
“Just like that,” Armstrong said, snapping his fingers. “It could anyone one of us. I’m just super grateful for the opportunities I’m getting and that are ahead of me. And every day, honestly.”