With “Captain America” Bryson Daily poised to graduate this spring, identifying his replacement will, undoubtedly, be the topic of greatest interest to Army fans in Spring Training.
Daily played quarterback and linebacker for his high school in Abernathy Texas and received a 5.4 rating at LB from Rivals in 2020. He was recruited by several FCS schools as an LB, but Army West Point was the only school that offered him the opportunity to be a quarterback. He played just 26 snaps at QB in his sophomore season but received a PFF rating of 94.5. He did not impress the PFF raters as the starter in the new offense in 2023, finishing the season with a dismal rating of 58.0; but his highest rating that year came against Coastal Carolina when Monken reverted to the traditional triple option offense.
Army fans did not know what to expect from the new offensive coordinator, Cody Worley and his quarterback Daily at the start of the 2024, but we were all pleasantly surprised, and Daily’s PFF ratings zoomed to a superlative 91.5 and the accolades came in from all over the country. Daily was named the AAC’s Most Valuable Offensive Player of the 2024 season, finished #6 in the Heisman voting, and was ranked the 39th best player in the country by a recent ESPN panel.
Corley built the 2024 offense around Daily’s power running, and Daily carried the ball 310 times for 1659 yards and 32 rushing touchdowns. He broke Keenan Reynolds NCAA season record for rushing touchdowns but he did not break the Army season rushing record held by Ahmad Bradshaw who rushed for 1746 yards in 242 carries in 2017.
Returning Quarterbacks
All three of the following quarterbacks played a season at USMAPS.
• Rising Senior Dewayne Coleman (5-10, 190 lbs) is the most experienced of the returning quarterbacks and the only one who has started a game at Army West Point. Coleman appeared in 7 games with 115 snaps in 2024. His only start came against arch rival Air Force and he played 52 snaps in the game earning a PFF rating of 61.5. His a season rating from PFF is a more respectable 72.9. Coleman cannot match Daily’s rushing talent with only 136 yards in 38 carries (3.58 ave) with 1 rushing touchdown in 2024, but he appears to be a better passing quarterback with 11 completions in 16 attempts for a completion percentage of 68.8 and an efficiency rating of 152.9.
• Rising Junior Cale Hellums (5-10, 203 lbs) appeared in just 3 games (Temple, Tulsa, and UAB) with no starts and just 10 offensive snaps. He had 3 rushing attempts for 28 yards and no passing attempts. For what it's worth Hellums threw for 8,021 yds and 83 TDs during his career at Tomball High in Tomball, Texas.
• Rising Sophomore Ethan Washington (6-1, 193 lbs) has yet to make his collegiate debut, but the staff considers him a viable candidate to compete for the starting job in 2025. He had a 5.4 rating from Rivals as a pro style QB in 2021, and played a year at USMAPS, which gives him an edge over two other freshmen QBs on the roster. He also has the advantage of being the tallest QB in the mix.
• Some of our subscribers have mentioned Luke Knight (5-9, 194 lbs) as another candidate for the position in 2025, but we have no information on him to share with you. Unlike the others, he did not have a season at USMAPS; so all we know about him is that he received a 5.4 rating from Rivals as a pro style quarterback in 2022. No doubt he’ll have an opportunity to demonstrate his potential this spring.
Outlook For The Spring
Identifying Daily’s successor will be one of the major tasks for Monken and Worley this spring and it’s likely to have an effect on all other decisions made about the 2025 offense. It’s highly unlikely that next year’s quarterback will bring the same power running style that Daily brought to the offense; since none of the three we’ve identified in this article are likely to have the power running skills that Daily brought to the game.
We fully expect that Worley will modify the offense to optimize the skill set of whoever they choose to move into the starting role at quarterback, but we can anticipate a few things.
First of all, we take it as a given that Monken will continue to place priority on running the ball. It’s part of his DNA. We may expect to see more of the running load being carried by the running backs and perhaps a bit more use of the read options that characterize the traditional triple option offense and less reliance on designed plays, but Army will run the ball at least 85% of the time. The only season in which Army passed less than 85% of the time was 2023, and Monken is not going to try that again.
On the other hand, we might expect to see a bit more reliance on the passing game to augment the running game with a QB who is more adept at passing. Consider, for example the difference between the 2017 offense with Bradshaw (another power runner) at QB and the 2018 season with Hopkins, the dual threat quarterback. Bradshaw attempted just 43 passes with 14 completions in 2017, while the following year, Hopkins attempted 93 passes with 51 completions. Both were good seasons but with significantly different approaches to the offense.
That begs the question of which comes first. Do Corley and Monken come up with a basic offensive scheme and then pick the right man to execute it, or do they look for the QB with the best skill set and then modify the offense to fit that set. It’s probably a combination of the those two approaches which will take place in the spring. That could make a difference in which WRs and TEs make it into the starting lineup in the fall.
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