Seventh in an 11-part series. Coming tomorrow: Linebackers.

Andre Carter began his collegiate career at Army by wrecking practice.

Famous for utilizing the triple-option offensive system, Army was barely able to practice the formation with Carter on the other side of the ball.

The team dedicates around 25 minutes of every practice solely working on the triple-option, but it was Carter as a freshman on the defensive scout team who stood out from the rest of his teammates despite the drill not really being designed for him.

“Every day, he’s batting down a pitch,” Army football coach Jeff Monken told The Post. “He’s just so long. And the quarterbacks are trying to influence him, and make him take them so that they can pitch it, or show the ball and make him think they’re gonna pitch it and duck it inside of him. He’s just so long and rangy, every day he’s batting a pitch down. You can see the quickness in his hands and his reaction time.

“And Mitch Ware, he was our quarterbacks coach at the time. After one of the option-drill sessions, he just walks over, he’s kind of chuckling, and he goes, ‘That guy is going to the NFL.’ And I said, ‘You think so?’ And he goes ‘I know it. That guy is going to the NFL. He is so good.’ And sure enough, here we are four years later and he’s going to the NFL.”

Yes, Carter is now on the cusp of the NFL.

But his path toward next week’s draft is perhaps unlike any other prospect’s.

He didn’t have any Power 5 scholarship offers coming out of Cheshire (Conn.) Academy.

That, and an affinity to “blow stuff up,” led Carter to West Point.

Previously, cadets at West Point were required to serve on active duty in the U.S. military for five years along with an additional three years in the reserves following graduation in exchange for their tuition-free education.

But a new law in 2019 allows cadets to defer their service until after their athletic careers. As such, Carter is ready for the NFL.

“There is a lot of stuff from the military in the Army that applies to football,” Carter said at the NFL Scouting Combine. “Obviously, the stakes are a lot greater in the Army. You know, lives are on the line. But I try to take stuff I learned from the Army, not only in football, but in my life, and really live those Army values. The biggest thing for me is my ability to manage a lot of things at once. I would say being at the academy, you’ve got to manage academics, football and then also your military responsibilities.”

It’s that last part that both helps and hurts Carter’s draft stock, and makes him the biggest wild-card prospect at edge rusher.

Though most top prospects are athletes first and everything else second, cadets must be servicemen first, students second and athletes third.

As a result, Carter did not receive the same level of strength, explosiveness and other training that most top prospects received.

Much of his time was spent training for the military, not the football field.

It showed at the combine and Senior Bowl, where the 6-foot-6 ¹/₂, 256-pound Carter underwhelmed in testing and looked a bit overmatched going against NFL-caliber opponents.

On the field, Carter’s monster junior year put him on the map before he regressed his senior season.

In 2021, he recorded 14.5 sacks, which was second only to Alabama’s Will Anderson, a projected top-five pick, and 17 tackles for loss.

That dropped to 3.5 sacks and 7.5 tackles for loss as he dealt with added attention and deeper scouting reports from opponents.

David Syvertsen, a lead scout for Ourlads Scouting Services, had Carter as a top-100 prospect and possible top-45 pick last year, but now sees him more in the 150-200 range.

NFL teams likely have to project him as a guy they can develop and who can start to contribute two-to-three years down the line as he transforms his body with NFL strength and conditioning programs.

Being a high-character leader, though, will help Carter break any ties with other prospects.

Regardless, Carter is set to be the first player from Army drafted since 2008.

“It’s interesting, because you can look at it one of two ways,” Syvertsen told The Post. “You can say he’s earlier on the progression curve, and has more untapped upside. Where one of the draws against guys from teams like Alabama and LSU is that their programs are so sophisticated now, maybe in some cases better than professional programs. They’ll come into the league and they’re kind of topped out, they’re already at their peak. You know Andre Carter is not at that peak.”