You wouldn’t have blamed Brennan Armstrong for entering the transfer portal in December.
His head coach did. His offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach did. His offensive line did.
With a new head coach, a new coordinator, a new QB coach, a new O line, he was going to be starting over anyway.
Armstrong would have been the prize of the transfer portal; he’d have had his pick from among a host of elite programs.
Credit to him that he stayed.
Now is time for the reality check.
He’s probably going to be running for his life behind a makeshift line, and he’ll probably make some mistakes in a new offense that he’s had to learn on the fly.
That Armstrong decided to put himself in this position is the reason that there is any reason to think that first-year head coach Tony Elliott will get his tenure at Virginia off to a better start than any of his predecessors.
Think about that for a second: George Welsh was 2-9 in his first season, in 1982; Al Groh was 5-7 in his debut season in 2001; Mike London was 4-8 in 2010; Bronco Mendenhall was 2-10 in 2016.
It’s not wishful thinking to think that Virginia could win seven, eight, maybe nine games this season.
That’s entirely because Brennan Armstrong hung around.
“A bunch of seniors sat down just talking about team goals, like, bottom line, first game, win. We have multiple goals throughout, but our first goal is a team focus on this first game, win. You know, like, that’s a great start to the season, great start to Coach Elliott’s career here,” Armstrong said this week, looking ahead to the season opener on Saturday with Richmond.
The feeling from Coach Elliott, you could say, is mutual.
“I just want Brennan to win, because that’s what he came back to do, is to win, and be the best version of himself,” Elliott said, in a nod to his QB1.
The 6-6 record last year was the lone knock on Armstrong as he burned his name into the UVA and ACC record books and made himself an NFL prospect in the process – that, sure, he had big numbers, great, but it all added up to 6-6 in the end.
Armstrong threw for 4,449 yards and 31 touchdowns on the season, and put up video game numbers in single games – 554 yards and four TDs in the 59-39 loss to UNC; 396 yards and four passing TDs, and 99 yards and two more TDs on the ground, in the 48-40 win over Georgia Tech, to single out two from among the many.
You can see from those scores that the reason Virginia ended up 6-6 was that the defense didn’t put up much resistance, so the knock on Armstrong that he was just a 6-6 quarterback isn’t fair.
Armstrong isn’t worried about what he termed the “outside noise.” He came back to boost his stock by showing that he can run a pro-style offense.
That would have been the other knock on Armstrong in terms of the NFL, that he put up big numbers, sure, but it was in a college offense.
The new offense, under Elliott, who was offensive coordinator at Clemson, and Des Kitchings, who left an NFL job to serve as offensive coordinator on Elliott’s staff, will showcase to NFL front offices what Armstrong can do running what teams that play on Sundays do offensively.
Armstrong admits that the learning curve has been steep, after four years in former UVA coordinator Robert Anae’s Air Raid.
“I mean, it’s been night and day, honestly,” Armstrong said. “At first, it was just trying to understand everything. It wasn’t any on the field stuff. It was just trying to, you know, get the formations down, work on the run game, and then work on here and there a little bit of a passing game. We’ve got intermediate throws, short game or quick game, we’ve got our shots down the field. From the start to now, it’s a totally different feeling, for me, at least, you know, running the offense.”
Elliott said Armstrong has “done a great job of commanding” the offense through the spring and into training camp, “but once you get into a live situation and things start moving fast, it may take him a second or to kind of get settled in.”
“I told him, we’re installing a Virginia offense, and there’s things that are going to help you for the future,” Elliott said. “Things are going to be different than what you’ve done in the past, so we’re going to work really, really hard to be a balanced team and establish the run, and then allow you to benefit with all the things that come off of it, but play in the system and not put that pressure on you to always come up with a play and be the guy that’s got to make a play, use your playmakers.
“I think if we can establish the run, then he’ll have his opportunities to deliver the ball down the field, intermediate and in the quick game and in our outlet run game – outlet run, I mean our screen game, which is our outlet run game. I think he’s got a chance to do anything he wants to do, but my expectation for him is to lead, improve in the areas that he’s identified he wants to improve, and then have fun and go win a bunch of games,” Elliott said.
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Chris Graham
