Quarterbacks take center stage for NC State football home opener

Saturday at Carter-Finley Stadium in Raleigh will be a reminder of the realities of modern college football. Starting in the NC State football home opener at quarterback for the Wolfpack will be Brennan Armstrong. His counterpart for Notre Dame will be Sam Hartman.

The two squared off in 2021. Armstrong put up monster numbers, throwing for 407 yards and 2 scores (with 1 pick) and also rushing for 33 yards on 17 carries. Hartman, though, got the 37-17 win after throwing for 270 yards and 3 touchdowns while adding 16 yards on 4 runs.

The game was played in Charlottesville, Va., and Armstrong suited up for Virginia, while Hartman was playing for Wake Forest.

Each are now in their one-and-only seasons at their new respective schools. Hartman is 1-2 as a starting quarterback against the Pack. Armstrong, though, has never played Notre Dame. NC State coach Dave Doeren noted that past games against Hartman will be of limited help Saturday when the Irish kick off at noon against the Pack.

“How you defend him in Wake’s offense is different than how you defend him in this one,” Doeren pointed out, “because of the run game, the play-action game, the things that are unique about Notre Dame’s system. Wake’s system was completely different.

“We do know, from experience, what kind of player he is, and there’s a great amount of respect from our staff toward that young man. We do know what we’ve done well and what we haven’t done well over the years against him, so there is some good knowledge in that.”

In two games this season, Hartman has completed 33 of 40 passes (82.5 percent) for 445 yards and 6 touchdowns without a pick while leading the Irish to lopsided wins with a combined score of 98-6. Doeren went back to Hartman’s state-title-winning days in high school to acknowledge his talent.

“We all know what he did at Wake, and you can see his confidence and how he manages Notre Dame’s offense,” Doeren noted. “He gets the ball to the right people and makes plays with his feet when he needs to. He’s got a nice cast around him. They’re definitely able to help him in other ways with the run game and big tight ends.”

As for Armstrong, in his NC State debut, the lefty completed 17 of 26 passes for 155 yards and ran 19 times for 96 yards and 2 scores in a 24-14 win at UConn. Doeren saw a lot of positives but not perfection from Armstrong.

“Brennan played a good game,” Doeren noted. “Definitely some plays I know he’d like to have back. But with a 65 percent completion rate, he moved the ball with his arms and his legs, and competed. He brought some energy, and his personality was able to come out. You got to see him compete.”

Doeren added that the NC State coaches saw in preseason camp that Armstrong had the potential to add a dual-threat element to the offense, but they could not know for sure until they saw him take contact in live games.

Now the key is managing Armstrong’s running on designed carries.

“Anytime you have a guy that runs like that, it’s tough for the defense,” Doeren added. “It’s also tough for you as a quarterback and as a coach because we want him to be able to play every game and stay healthy. He understands. He’s been doing this a long time.”

Doeren also noted that Armstrong and the passing game will need to be a bigger threat vertically in the passing game than they showed at UConn.

“We had some shots called, and they covered it,” Doeren noted. “Good job by them. I think there were a couple of times we did throw the ball down the field and didn’t connect in the game. We had one call that was wide open, and Brennan took off running on that play. That would have been a vertical shot that would have hit, it just didn’t work out that way.”

More from NC State football coach Dave Doeren

• Don’t count Doeren as a fan of the new college football clock rules. He cited stats that showed there were 15 fewer plays and three fewer possessions a game.

“Our first quarter was over after three possessions total at UConn,” Doeren noted. “They had a long drive where they ran the football. We did the same. Now you look and there’s 2 minutes and 30 seconds left in the first quarter after the first touches for each team.

“Then we had four TV timeouts per quarter, 16 television timeouts in our game. But, we’re going to be excited about that and take football out of the game? I think it’s sad that’s what’s happened.”

• A couple of ACC rivals for NC State football did well over the weekend. North Carolina rolled past South Carolina, 31-17, and No. 8 Florida State trounced No. 5 LSU, 45-24. Both games against SEC opponents were played at neutral sites.

Now NC State has a chance to improve the conference’s perception further against a Notre Dame program that has gone 28-2 against the ACC since 2018.

“It doesn’t matter who we play, as a league we want to do well,” Doeren said. “We want to perform well. We want to win games, and this team that we’re against is quasi-in our league, in and out. …We need to perform better against them. There’s no doubt about it.”

• On Friday, the ACC approved the additions of California, SMU and Stanford into the league for 2024. NC State is believed to have been the swing vote to accept the trio of schools.

“I’ve had my head down trying to get our football team ready,” Doeren said. “That stuff really doesn’t mean a lot to me. For us, we’re going to play one game maybe every other year out there, maybe. It will be fun to show the guys the Golden Gate Bridge and see Cali a little bit. They’re the teams that have the struggle of having to travel all the time. For us, it’s a one-off.”