How Southern Miss DC Austin Armstrong became one of college football’s most promising minds
Rarely does an opportunity worth taking not meet sacrifice, a sentiment Southern Miss defensive coordinator Austin Armstrong knows quite well.
Now among college football’s youngest coordinators, Armstrong didn’t always have things figured out. The former Huntington College linebacker finished his playing career in 2014, but he wasn’t able to earn his Bachelor’s degree until December 2015. In the interim, he coached at Montgomery Catholic Preparatory School (Ala.) while looking for his breakthrough in the college coaching ranks.
“I wrote a handwritten letter to everybody that coaches football from below the Mason-Dixon line out to Texas and sent them my resume,” Armstrong said. “I wasn’t self-righteous enough to think if I wrote Coach Saban at Alabama 20 handwritten notes that he’d be like, ‘Hey, this guy’s a good guy.’ That’s just not how it works. It’s easier to get into Wall Street than it is to get into college football. So, I zeroed in on [Will] Hall at West Georgia.”
Long before this duo became the leaders of Southern Miss football, Armstrong was on the outside looking in simply pestering Hall for an opportunity. Hall, who currently serves as the head coach at Southern Miss, let those initial pleas fall on deaf ears. Nonetheless, the ever-persistent Armstrong began running the roads of West Alabama dropping off resumes at local high schools.
Despite many admitted failures along the way, a graduate assistant position at West Georgia finally presented itself in April 2016.
With little success out of the gate, Armstrong utilized every mutual contact he had with Hall to create a line of communication. He even called Hall’s secretary, nearly to the point of harassment, upwards of 10 times per day. Each time Hall left his office following an offseason meeting with players, he had a new message waiting for him.
Eventually, Armstrong even had his cousin reach out to Mississippi coaching legend Bobby Hall — Will’s father — to request the favor that somehow secured him an interview.
“I ended up getting the job for a whopping $287,” Armstrong laughed. “They gave me a place to live, so I was very fortunate. I also got a $400 one-time stipend for food for the semester. I worked there for one season. My office was literally a closet.”
In 2017, Hall left West Georgia to become the offensive coordinator at Louisiana. Once again, Armstrong found himself reeling in an attempt to find a new home on the gridiron. Luckily, once Hall got through his recruiting schedule, another opportunity welcomed Armstrong with the Ragin’ Cajuns.
However, there was a significant catch. From March through June, he was informed there would be no money available for the defensive assistant. In a far from unfamiliar situation, Armstrong parted with one of his prized possessions to make a move to The Boot a viable option.
“I had a white 1999 single cab Toyota Tacoma 5-speed,” Armstrong recalled. “Best truck I’ve ever had. I sold it and used that money [$5,000] to live off until I started getting a stipend.”
In the wise words of former Super Bowl champion head coach Bruce Arians, “no risk it, no biscuit.” Unsurprisingly, nothing was too large of an ask for one of college football’s brightest coaching prospects. Armstrong quickly began to learn the ins and outs of the game, helping Louisiana claim its first of four-straight Sun Belt Conference West Division titles in 2018, play in the Sun Belt's first football championship game and earn an appearance in the AutoNation Cure Bowl.
From there, Armstrong enjoyed a quick run with Georgia as a defensive quality control coach where he played a role in head coach Kirby Smart's unit landing as high as No. 3 in the national polls. He returned to Louisiana in 2020 as the inside linebackers coach en route to another Sun Belt West Division title before ultimately reuniting with Hall in 2021 as the Nasty Bunch’s defensive coordinator.
“The biggest thing you get out of the journey is gratitude,” Armstrong said. “Being thankful that God’s been so good to you and that you’ve had these opportunities. The track that the good Lord’s put me on is not normal, and it’s because he exposed me to a lot of good people, good coaches and good men. They’ve given me opportunities, and I’ve tried to make the most out of them. You don’t really think of it like ‘I’ve arrived’ or anything because there’s always another challenge.”
All in all, it seems like things worked out well enough. No more selling cars. No more one-time $400 stipends. Finally, all the 29-year-old has to do is lock in on what he calls the easy part — coaching football.