ELON, N.C. — The plan was to attack the stack.

“Those five guys up front and tight ends set the tone early,” James Madison senior quarterback Ben DiNucci said.

A normally tricky defense to decipher was no match for the No. 2 Dukes as they bludgeoned their way to a 45-10 win over No. 24 Elon in their conference opener on Saturday at Rhodes Stadium.

JMU ran for 336 yards and four different Dukes scored rushing touchdowns.

“We did a good job of getting a hat on a hat and winning the one-on-one battles,” said first-year Madison coach Curt Cignetti, who led Elon in the same role the past two seasons. “But we did have a lot of experience against that defense, practicing against it for two years.”

The Dukes’ first three possessions netted three scores to jump ahead 21-7.

During those three series, DiNucci and three different running backs — junior Percy Agyei-Obese, junior Jawon Hamilton and redshirt freshman Solomon Vanhorse — combined to carry the ball 17 times for 110 yards. The Dukes lined up in two-tight end formations and even used an unbalanced set with left tackle Zaire Bethea playing on the far right side of right tackle Liam Fornadel at times in the opening 30 minutes.

Vanhorse capped the initial series with a 6-yard touchdown run and DiNucci went untouched past the goal line from 5 yards out after faking a handoff on the Dukes’ second touchdown.

Hamilton had three runs for 36 yards to setup DiNucci’s score.

“I thought [Hamilton] gave us a real shot in the arm early,” Cignetti said. “When it was a back-and-forth game, I thought he made some impressive runs.”

Hamilton said: “I just want to give all the credit to the offensive line. We came out and executed Monday through Friday, and obviously it transitioned over to today.”

The 336 yards on the ground were more than three times as many rushing yards as JMU had against the same 3-3-5 stack defense last year when the Dukes averaged 2.6 yards per carry in a loss to the Phoenix.

Elon coach Tony Trisciani was the defensive coordinator for Cignetti the past two years before being promoted this offseason.

“When you say they’ve struggled against [the 3-3-5 defense],” Trisciani said, “it’s a different ‘they.’ It’s a ‘they’ now that have gone against it for two years.

“And that’s our defense, so when we come into this game we can’t just go run a different defense against JMU because they have familiarity with what we do. So we had wrinkles that we came in with and we had some answers to the run game because we’re familiar with their run game also, but there are some wrinkles in there that were different and they got a lot of push.”

Trisciani and Elon defensive end Marcus Willoughby said JMU exploited Elon’s C-gap to control the running game.

Hamilton, who finished with a game-high 81 rushing yards, had a 14-yard touchdown run in the third quarter and freshman running back Latrele Palmer scored twice in the second half.

The Dukes (4-1, 1-0 CAA) went the whole game without Elon (2-3, 1-1 CAA) recording a sack or tackle for loss.

“We won up front,” said Cignetti, whose comments could also apply to JMU’s defensive line.

JMU limited Elon to 33 rushing yards and sacked Elon quarterback Davis Cheek five times. Dukes defensive end John Daka had two sacks.

“You want to get the ball out before they get there,” Cheek said. “I’m not worried about their rush, but they did a great job of trying to get pressure.”

Cheek threw his first interception of the season when JMU cornerback Rashad Robinson picked off a pass in the second half.

James Madison 14 7 17 7—45

Elon 7 0 0 3—10

Scoring Summary

First Quarter

ELON—Jones 66 pass from Cheek (Davis kick), 14:08

JMU—Vanhorse 6 run (Ratke kick), 11:40

JMU—DiNucci 5 run (Ratke kick), 2:39

Second Quarter

JMU—Vanhorse 0 fumble recovery (Ratke kick), 13:22

Third Quarter

JMU—Ratke 44 field goal, 12:19

JMU—Hamilton 14 run (Ratke kick), 3:54

JMU—Palmer 3 run (Ratke kick), 1:50

Fourth Quarter

ELON—Davis 50 field goal, 12:16

JMU—Palmer 2 run (Ratke kick), 8:47

Individual Stats

RUSHING—JMU: Hamilton 13-81, Palmer 8-78, Vanhorse 11-63, Agyei-Obese 12-59, Kirlew 8-29, DiNucci 4-26. ELON: Cyphers 3-38, Baughman 4-12, Thomas 6-11, McNair 4-4, Cheek 6-(-32).

PASSING—JMU: DiNucci 13-21-0-185, Johnson 0-1-0-0. ELON: Cheek 14-32-1-189, Baughman 1-1-0-5.

RECEIVING—JMU: Brown 3-53, Ravenel 3-40, R. Stapleton 3-33, Hamilton 2-11, Dean 1-27, Polk 1-21. ELON: Jones 6-93, Daughtry 2-43, Foster 2-15, Weeks 2-14, Taylor 1-15, Parham 1-9, Drummond 1-5.