It’s thinning out

On Wednesday, the Notre Dame Fighting Irish finally released their depth chart for Saturday’s home opener against the Toledo Rockets. The Irish were missing three players on Sunday against Florida State that were can presume are COVID related just based off of the way it was announced and talked about. Those three players were RB C’Bo Flemister, DE Jordan Botelho, and RB Logan Diggs. None of those three players are on this week’s depth chart, so at the moment we can assume that none of the three will play against Toledo.

OFFENSE

The loss of Blake Fisher due to a knee injury forces a shakeup along the offensive line. Michael Carmody took over for Fisher at LT and remains the starter moving forward, with Tosh Baker moves over from his role as Josh Lugg’s backup at RT to Carmody’s understudy. True freshman Joe Alt now steps in as the backup to Lugg at RT. Tight end Kevin Bauman also suffered an injury Sunday night, so Michael Mayer’s lone backup is George Takacs. Despite missing both Diggs and Flemister, the depth chart does not have Audric Estime listed.

DEFENSE

Notre Dame’s linebacker room took massive losses over the past couple weeks with WILL Shayne Simon, ROVER Paul Moala, and WILL Marist Liufau all out. Notre Dame now has true freshman Prince Kollie backing up J.D. Bertrand at the WILL. There are no other significant changes, but the front seven is looking quite thin at the moment because of those injuries — so perhaps this week they may find more ways to get some time for other guys not listed.

SPECIAL TEAMS

There are no changes on special teams this week. Matt Salerno and Lawrence Keys are still listed as the punt returners despite Kyren Williams playing that role against Florida State.