Notre Dame Football Depth Chart: Purdue Week Edition

Late yesterday afternoon Irish Sports Daily started tweeting highlights from the new depth chart.  You can now find the whole thing there, at Rivals or pretty much any other Irish-related place on the internet.  A few things that jump out:

• Steve Filer isn't on the two-deep, which is a surprise.  I'd be shocked if he didn't work his way into the rotation by the end of the month, and some Irish fans think this is some sort of motivational tactic and he'll see the field before Prince Shembo.  I don't think I'd go that far, but I don't think we've seen the last of Filer.
• We may have seen the last of Shaq Evans and possibly Deion Walker, neither of whom cracked the top six receivers.  Those guys have all the talent in the world, but they just haven't been able to find their groove under Weis or Kelly.  Rumors have Evans transferring out sooner rather than later, and there's potential for Walker to maybe move over to defense if he doesn't move on.  Who knows why the four-star guys didn't work out, but it doesn't look like they'll be having a major impact on the offense this season, at least early on.
• Braxston Cave beats out Dan Wenger, Chris Stewart holds off Chris Watt and Zach Martin and Taylor Dever will replace Sam Young and Paul Duncan on the outside.  Trevor Robinson will also be starting, but there was never any question about that.
• Tyler Eifert is your number two tight end over Mike Ragone, while Cierre Wood is backing up Armando Allen.  Other young folks in the top forty-four include Tommy Rees at backup quarterback, Prince Shembo and Danny Spond at linebacker and Lo Wood at corner (Wood is sort of by default).  TJ Jones maintains his hold on the starting wide receiver gig, lining up alongside Michael Floyd and Theo Riddick.
• Backup wide receivers are Roby Toma, Duval Kamara and John Goodman.
• Wood and Riddick will be returning kicks, Nick Tausch is place kicking, David Ruffer is kicking off and Allen is returning punts.  Kelly likes to get the ball into the hands of his playmakers as much as possible, as number one receiver Mardy Gilyard was returning kicks for the Bearcats last year.
  
• Anthony McDonald is backing up Carlos Calabrese, so I assume that means he will be good to go for Saturday afternoon.  We can certainly hope so.