NC State's Brennan Armstrong Presents New Challenge For The Notre Dame Defense

Notre Dame’s defense has been good through two games. The Fighting Irish have held Navy and Tennessee State to a grand total of six points and an average of 162 yards through its first two games. The numbers are impressive, but they have also come against one Group of Five team and one FCS team. The ante gets upped this weekend when the Irish face their first Power Five opponent NC State.

This Saturday’s game has always been circled as the first true test for Notre Dame. Head coach Dave Doeren’s Wolfpack has won at least eight games in each of the last three seasons and five times in the last six years.

What makes North Carolina State more intriguing and potentially dangerous this season is the addition of graduate transfer quarterback Brennan Armstrong. Like Notre Dame’s Sam Hartman, Armstrong is in his sixth season of eligibility. He played his first five seasons at Virginia before heading to Raleigh, NC this year.

Armstrong is a dual threat quarterback who has rushed for 1,363 yards and 22 touchdowns while also passing for 9,189 yards and 58 touchdowns in his career. Fighting Irish head coach Marcus Freeman is well aware of the challenge Armstrong presents to his defense with his legs.

"I just think it’s the mindset of your guys that are rushing,” Freeman said this week of how to corral Armstrong. "We can’t have guys behind the quarterback, we can’t give him vertical lanes to step up and escape from. But it’s a double-edged sword, because I don’t want four guys spying the quarterback. Having a QB spy is something you’ll have every game but it’s a mindset of understanding we have to be controlled in our rush. We can’t be out of control and end up behind the quarterback and give him those lanes to escape from.”

Notre Dame had a little practice working against mobile quarterbacks last week versus Tennessee State. The Irish defense was mostly successful containing Deveon Bryant and Draylen Ellis, though they did combine for 29 yards, with a long run of 13 yards by Bryant. Jordan Botelho had the team’s only sack, but the defense had 10 hurries on the two Tiger quarterbacks.

"We’re going to have to keep him in the pocket and it’s something we didn’t do a great job with at Tennessee State,” Freeman remarked. "He got out of the pocket a couple times, both quarterbacks. So, we’ve got to do a better job there. But it’s just a mentality and mindset. We have to be aggressive, but we can’t be out of control where we end up behind the quarterback.”

Armstrong ran for 96 of NC State’s 209 rushing yards with two touchdowns in their season-opening 24-14 win over UConn last week. He also passed for 155 yards while completing 65% of his 26 attempts.

This season is a reunion of Armstrong and offensive coordinator Robert Anae, who were together from 2018-2021 at Virginia. Armstrong had his best season in ‘21 when he passed for 4,449 yards with 31 touchdowns, 10 interceptions, 251 rushing yards, and nine touchdown runs.

"It starts with based off personnel,” Freeman said when asked how Anae and Armstrong complement each other. "So, what offensive personnel’s in the game, what do we want to be in defensively and they have so many different personnels. They use guys at so many different positions and that’s the thing that’s challenging is that yes, you’re going to get tempo, yes Brennan Armstrong’s extremely talented but you’re getting so many formations out of different personnels and so many different guys coming in the game. You have to almost play with a base defense and say, alright no matter who’s where you’re going to play defense according to a picture. Not to who’s in the game as much as ok, we’ve got to make sure we see the picture. Don’t worry about that’s a tight end or a running or a wide out. What does the picture tell you and then you game plan that way.”

While Armstrong’s running is an asset, his career accuracy is average. He completed just 54% of his passes last season and has a 60% career completion percentage with 35 career interceptions. He threw just seven touchdowns with 12 interceptions in 10 games at Virginia last season. Despite his mobility, he was sacked at least five times in four different games.

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