Dave Doeren reveals how Brennan Armstrong has handled decision to start MJ Morris

On Friday night, NC State lost a close game to Louisville to drop to 3-2 on the season. Then, on Monday, head coach Dave Doeren announced that MJ Morris would replace Brennan Armstrong as the team’s starting quarterback.

After making the announcement, Doeren shared how the NC State coaching staff came to make that decision.

“I came in Saturday,” Dave Doeren said. “We played Friday night, as you know, and I watched the game a bunch of times and then sat down with the coaches on offense and we watched a bunch of it together, talked about the season so far, and talked about where we’re at and where we need to go. Then, Sunday, when we came back in, made that decision.”

After the coaches decided to make the switch, Doeren let the players know individually. For Armstrong’s part, he took the news as well as he possibly could.

“Met with those guys individually and let them know what we’re doing. They both handled it as good teammates and competitors would. Like I said, Brennan’s going to be a great teammate. He handled a very tough conversation as well as he possibly can. I think my respect for him has always been high because he’s a super competitive dude, but he is an excellent teammate.”

Going forward, one thing that Doeren does expect to see is that Armstrong will continue to be a leader and a good teammate.

“So, he handled it as well as you could hope and you’ll see that. You’ll see him leading. He’ll be on the sidelines cheering guys on throughout the game, and if he’s needed to play, he’s gonna play. He’ll come in and play hard.”

Dave Doeren then confirmed that Brennan Armstrong will be the backup quarterback moving forward.

NC State is 3-2 this season, with losses to Notre Dame and Louisville. For his part, Brennan Armstrong is completing 58.8 percent of passes for 971 yards and five touchdowns. He’s also thrown six interceptions.

Dave Doeren defended Brennan Armstrong after the Louisville game

NC State failed to score in the second half of the team’s loss to Louisville with Brennan Armstrong throwing two interceptions in the process. After the game, Dave Doeren defended him despite the poor performance.

“First of all, nobody feels worse than Brennan does right now. We got work to do with the whole team. I know he’s gonna own his part of it. There’s a lot of things that happened around him and that made it a hard night at that position too. I told them this in the locker room, every player has a partner in a win every player has a partner in a loss,” Doeren said.

“There’s a lot of things we got to improve on. It’s football, you know, you start blaming the head coach first and then after that, you go to the quarterback, that’s what people do. I understand that. That’s the sport we’re in. That’s not what I’m gonna do. I’m gonna get in there with these guys and try to help them get better.”