This is the Depth Dossier: the Army Black Knights, Week 7.

Army put on a rushing clinic in a 56 to 24 win over Florida Atlantic, and quarterback Cale Hellums barely needed help, except that he got plenty of it anyway.

Hellums ran for 195 yards and five touchdowns, tying Army's single-game record for rushing touchdowns by a quarterback. But this wasn't a one-man show. Running back Jake Rendina broke off a 61-yard score, running back Samari Howard opened the scoring right after Army picked off Florida Atlantic on the game's very first snap, and running back Bryson Luter capped the night with a 69-yard touchdown in the final two minutes. Florida Atlantic briefly tied things at fourteen, but Army answered with 28 unanswered points. The Black Knights finished with 479 rushing yards on 60 carries and didn't even punt until the fourth quarter.

Let's talk about just how lopsided this was. That's eight yards a carry, and Army barely threw the ball at all, just two attempts all game, completing one for two yards. They still scored touchdowns on their first seven possessions. That's not really a game plan leaning on the option offense. That's a defense that couldn't get off the field no matter how obvious the play call was.

The turnovers set the tone early. Florida Atlantic quarterback Caden Veltkamp was picked off on the game's opening snap, with defensive back Elijah Walton coming up with the interception after pressure from defensive lineman Jack Bousum. Army scored a touchdown on the very next play. By the end of the night, Army was plus-three in turnover margin and turned those takeaways directly into 21 points, nearly two-fifths of their final total.

The real turning point came after Florida Atlantic tied it at fourteen in the first quarter. Instead of a shootout, Army ripped off 21 unanswered points in the second quarter alone, turning a tied game into a 42 to 14 lead by early in the third. That's the kind of run that ends things as a contest well before the clock says so.

One more number worth remembering: Rendina had seven carries for 86 yards, better than twelve yards a carry, proof that Florida Atlantic couldn't just key on Hellums.

Now to the depth chart, and this is where it gets interesting for Army going forward. No injuries came out of this game, which is a relief given how much the backfield carried the load. But the bigger story is exactly what we flagged last week. Army seems to be managing Hellums' workload, and now it's showing up in the pecking order. Luter moves up to the number two quarterback spot, with Washington sliding to number three. That's a real shift after Luter went for three carries, 78 yards, and a touchdown, that 69-yarder being his first career rushing score.

That matters beyond just the quarterback room. If Luter's getting real snaps in a blowout rather than just mop-up duty, it suggests the coaching staff is serious about trimming Hellums' carries after he ran it 38 times the week before and 25 more here. Rendina's shown he's more than a complementary back, and Howard's two-way impact, touchdown runs plus Army's only completed pass, shows this offense doesn't live and die on one guy, even if it lives and dies on the ground game as a whole.

Nothing else on the roster moved enough to matter this week. With three straight conference wins in the bank, the question for Army isn't whether they can run the football. It's how those carries get split now that Hellums has company who can finish drives just as well as he can.

This was the depth dossier. For everything college football, be it depth charts, data or dossiers, head over to C F B Depth dot com. We will be back next week. This was an AI-generated podcast from content developed by real human beings passionate about college football.