The story behind Austin Armstrong’s quick rise, and his vision for the Southern Miss D
Editor’s Note: This is part one of a subscriber-only two-part series on Southern Miss defensive coordinator Austin Armstrong and his plans for the 2021 season. Part two will publish next week on the Sun Herald website.
Since graduating in 2014 from tiny Huntingdon College in Montgomery, Alabama, Southern Miss defensive coordinator Austin Armstrong’s coaching career has been on a trajectory that few young FBS assistants can compare to.
Armstrong, who is less than a month away from his 28th birthday, was tasked by new USM coach Will Hall in December with reviving a USM defense that has battled inconsistency in recent years.
It was Hall who gave Armstrong his first college coaching job as an assistant defensive line coach at Division II West Georgia in 2016. He then followed Hall to Louisiana-Lafayette as a defensive graduate assistant in 2017 and 2018.
An opportunity to join Kirby Smart’s staff at Georgia as defensive quality control coach for the 2019 season proved a significant step in his career, putting him in position to return to Louisiana-Lafayette in 2020 as inside linebackers coach.
When Hall was tabbed as the Golden Eagles’ new head coach in early December, there was no hesitation on his part to give Armstrong a call to see if he wanted to be his defensive coordinator.
“I thought it was a no-brainer because we believe in the same things when it comes to football,” Armstrong said. “He knows that we have to be really good on defense. Some offensive coaches want everything tailored to the offense. Not Coach Hall. He’s been a head coach for so long and been so successful. He knows what it takes to have longevity in success. Everything we do, we do together.”
How USM DC Austin Armstrong got his first job with Will Hall
Although Armstrong’s career has been on a meteoric rise over the past five years, there was a time it seemed to him that his pursuit of becoming a college coach would never get off the ground after finishing up his playing career at Division III Huntingdon.
Efforts to try to join the staffs of UAB’s Bill Clark and Hall at West Georgia were unsuccessful early on.
“I basically harassed Coach Hall, wrote him 25 notes. At some point in writing correspondence, you run out of things to say,” Armstrong said. “I moved back home and I was just studying football. My parents were so good to me, but I was having a hard time. I was always a high achiever, and the next thing you know you graduate and move back to your parents’ house.”
Armstrong noticed that a graduate assistant job opened up at West Georgia, but he found out when he contacted the staff that they had already hired someone.
“I was driving up and down Highway 43 (in Alabama) dropping off resumes at high schools. I couldn’t get anything,” Armstrong said.
After opportunities at Berry College in Georgia and Auburn also fell through, he noticed that the same graduate assistant’s job at West Georgia was open again in April of 2016.
Armstrong reached out to every connection he could think of to ask them to put in a good word with Hall, and then he began to call Hall’s office every 45 minutes to an hour.
Impressed by his persistence, Hall told his defensive staff to reach out to Armstrong, who was informed they already had someone in mind for the job, but he was given an opportunity to make a case for himself in an interview that next morning.
Four days later, he was informed he had the job.
Two USM coaches have a friendship
During the one year at West Georgia, Hall was impressed enough by Armstrong that he asked if he would follow him to Louisiana-Lafayette after he was hired there by Mark Hudspeth as offensive coordinator.
The only problem was that Armstrong would have to work as an unpaid graduate assistant for three months until funds became available again. So he sold his Toyota truck and took his mom’s car to Lafayette for his first experience on the FBS level.
“(Hall) was so good to me. I was a defensive guy working with the offense, helping them scout and game plan,” Armstrong said. “I learned so much from him. He’s a great coach and teacher.
“We got real close in what was a challenging year. We became almost like best friends. We spent so much time together that we realized we were a lot alike from a personality standpoint. We’re both football junkies.”
Hall, 41, described their relationship as “almost kindred spirits.”
USM’s Will Hall believes he hired the next great defensive mind
In hiring Armstrong, Hall believes he has found the right man to install the same type of multiple-formation scheme that has been developed by the likes of former Georgia coach Kirby Smart and Dave Aranda, who became the head coach at Baylor ahead of the 2020 season following a successful run at LSU.
“He’ll be the next Kirby Smart, and he’s a great person,” Hall said of Armstrong. “Some thought we might hire older. Sure, we can hire someone older. But I wanted to hire a young guy who is going to be the next superstar in coaching, and that’s what we got.”
In fall camp, Armstrong will finish installation of a defense that he hopes will allow his group to handle whatever is thrown their way throughout the course of the season.
“We’re not a team that lines up with one front, one call and goes and plays hard,” he said. “We’re not a team that’s very multiple in the front and simple on the back end, or multiple on the back end and simple on the front. We’ll be aggressive and have different techniques with the front and secondary. We’ve got to be able to coach here. We’ll play hard and we’ll give those players answers, being clear and concise.”
Armstrong gave nods to everyone from Smart to New Mexico defensive coordinator Rocky Long to Baylor defensive coordinator Ron Roberts in laying the groundwork for his defensive plan at Southern Miss.
“We take a lot of pride in how we teach the system, how we walk through things,” Armstrong said. “Coach Hall says that the best teachers on a college campus should be the coaches. We have a very unique classroom, and kids learn in different ways. We’ve got to be able to teach them.”
Breaking down the USM defensive staff
Armstrong’s defensive staff is mostly composed of coaches he or Hall have worked with in the past. One exception is defensive line coach Brandy Lacy, who was hired away from Richmond after he had impressed Armstrong during a prior interview at Louisiana-Lafayette.
“I thought that guy was a rock star,” Armstrong said. “I knew I wanted to hire him.”
Safeties coach Dan O’Brien, who worked alongside Armstrong in quality control when he was at Georgia, is one of the familiar faces on the staff.
“Dan has been on the staff at Alabama (in a quality control role) under Nick Saban and Kirby Smart,” Armstrong said. “He was at Navy when they were at their height, and then he comes back to Georgia.
“We’ve worked hand-in-hand in organization and breaking down schemes. It’s hiring a guy that’s as intelligent as any guy I’ve ever been around. He’s a football guy, and that’s how I was raised. We believe in the same stuff from the secondary standpoint. Hiring him was easy.”
In cornerbacks coach Chad Williams, USM landed a former Golden Eagles standout who played in the NFL for the Baltimore Ravens and San Francisco 49ers.
“We interviewed him and he knocked it out of the park,” Armstrong said. “He’s a Southern Miss guy, and that’s important. Chad played in the NFL, and he brings that aspect. He’s been there and done it.”
Outside linebackers coach Mark Criner brings a lengthy resume that includes stops as a defensive coordinator or co-defensive coordinator at Portland State, Cincinnati, Middle Tennessee and Idaho.
“He was a quality control guy at Tulane (in 2019 when Hall was there as offensive coordinator), working as a defensive guy on the offensive side of the ball,” Armstrong said.
Armstrong is confident he’ll be working with a staff that will put the players in a position to succeed.
“My staff has done a phenomenal job,” he said. “I think they’re good coaches and even better people. That’s the most important thing. They each have background in doing what we want to do on defense. We have guys that are real coaches.”
With Hall leading the offense and Armstrong setting the tone on defense, the two men will see if the chemistry they’ve developed over the last five years will deliver wins in Hattiesburg.
“Our whole point is what’s best for Southern Miss,” Armstrong said. “Our program is based off the quarterback and based on the defense. Every decision is based off that, working hand-in-hand there. We don’t have to bicker and fight because that trickles down the staff.
“We see football in the same way and we believe in the same things off the field. (Hall) wants the best for everybody. He’s a great boss and a great mentor.”
