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When Erik Will moved to Shelby, Ohio, in 2013, whispers of a 13-year-old freak athlete took over the town. All of Shelby had its eyes on Brennan Armstrong, who was still in eighth grade.

“You could see that the kid was unbelievable at running the football,” said Will, Armstrong’s head coach at Shelby High School. “He was able to run as well as he passed.”

Armstrong started at quarterback his freshman year at Shelby. He became the No. 1 dual-threat quarterback in Ohio after receiving his first Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference school offer that year, helping Shelby to their best record in team history. On Friday, he’ll face Syracuse for the first time, slated against his former quarterback coach and offensive coordinator.

In the three seasons prior to Armstrong’s arrival at Shelby, the Whippets went 3-27. They had a winless, 0-10 season in 2011, went 2-8 in 2012 and 1-9 in 2013.

Armstrong’s name quickly spread around the state after Shelby lost 83-82 in October 2014 to Tiffin Columbian in overtime. Armstrong erased a 21-point deficit in the game’s final eight minutes, throwing for 358 yards and five touchdowns. He also ran for 191 yards and four touchdowns.

“His freshman season, his team went 2-8, but you could tell what was coming up,” said Jake Furr, sports reporter and photographer at the Mansfield News Journal in Mansfield, Ohio.

Will said Armstrong was a “true scholarship quarterback” as a sophomore. But Armstrong also excelled at safety, making multiple first-team, all-league defensive teams. Some college coaches recruited Armstrong at defensive back.

“He was a dog on the defensive side,” Will said. “I told (one Big Ten coach that) he wants to play quarterback, but if he wanted to play safety, he’d be a Division I safety.”

In addition to being a two-way football player, Armstrong dominated in baseball and basketball, the latter of which he was a first-team all-league as a freshman for the varsity team. Shelby football assistant coach Scott Gurney said Armstong would’ve been drafted out of high school if he stuck with baseball because of his ability to throw 90 miles an hour with his left hand.

“He was just the kid that in a small town played all three sports,” Will said. “Around here, he was the best at all of them.”

In his sophomore season, the Whippets improved to 5-5. The ensuing year, the team went 11-2.

“He could have easily settled on his success as an underclassman and rode that through his senior year,” Furr said. “But he continued to work hard and recognized what he needed to get better at and did it.”

In his senior year, Armstrong led Shelby to a program best 13-1 record. The program made the state semifinals for the first time that season and Armstrong finished with the most passing yards and third-most rushing yards all-time at Shelby.

“The enthusiasm of the town during his little four-year reign was crazy,” Gurney said. “It was awesome too because, throughout all of it, he was probably the humblest kid of all.”

Published on September 22, 2022 at 8:02 pm