Heading into Saturday’s Blue-Gold Game at Notre Dame Stadium (2 p.m. EDT on Peacock), some of the positional Irish football depth charts look more like mosh pits than some sense of actual pecking order.
Which kind of is the nature of spring football and nothing close to a red flag, especially for a 14-2 team coming off an extended College Football Playoff run and a No. 2 finish in both polls.
It’s doubtful the Blue-Gold Game itself will provide any further clarity about both where everyone stands at the moment and where they’ll eventually end up by the Aug. 31 season opener at Miami. But it’s likely to provide more food for thought, both for the coaching staff and the airchair coaches at home watching from a distance.
Inside ND Sports is updating its depth chart projections ahead of the Blue-Gold Game to reflect the actual movement we’ve seen during the first nine practices of the spring, the interviews we’ve done with players and coaches, and the calculus we’ve done regarding how injured and limited players fit into the picture.
We’ll update it again after the conclusion of spring practice and head coach Marcus Freeman’s post-spring practice meeting with the media on April 23. That will take into account three practices that will be staged after the Blue-Gold Game as well as two this coming week that precede it.
Heights and weights were last updated in mid-March, when spring practices got underway. A complete key to players’ status is at the bottom of the depth chart.
And speaking of the Blue-Gold Game, it will not be a traditional format, nor will it have traditional scoring.
“It will be offense versus defense,” Freeman said of the format. “We won’t do a draft like we have in the past, because of numbers. We don’t have the ability to truly have two complete offenses and defenses.
“[I] feel like it’s going to be what’s best for our program. So, we will go offense versus defense for the spring game, and score it in a way, kind of like we scored it [in Saturday’s controlled scrimmage], something that our guys are familiar with. But we’ll find a way to make it competitive. It’ll be great to see those guys.”
*-Denotes player who will have modified/limited activity in the spring but will still participate while rehabbing from surgery.
#-Denotes player whose participation will be limited in spring due to playing another sport.
x-Denotes freshman or transfer who won’t enroll at Notre Dame until June.
y-Denotes player who will miss spring football due to injury and/or surgery rehab.
+-Denotes player exercising extra year of eligibility through COVID exemption.
^-Rendell is guaranteed two years of eligibility by the NCAA and is petitioning for a third.
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