Notre Dame released its football depth charts as it prepares to face the California Golden Bears on Saturday. Please keep in mind that the depth chart is still subject to change with this only being Monday of game week.

OFFENSE

Obviously, the big change is at quarterback. With Tyler Buchner out for the season with an injury, Drew Pyne takes over as QB1 with Steve Angeli now at the backup position. After two weeks of underwhelming performances, conventional wisdom might suggest a change along the offensive line — but that’s not quite the case here according to Marcus Freeman:

“We look at the entire picture of our offensive line. They’ve made progress from week one to week two, and I’m sure it’ll make progress from week two to week three. We want to expedite that process, but you got to look at the big picture. What’s the best five and that’s something that we looked and we talked about, and we feel very strongly about the five we have out there. Jarrett Patterson played a heck of a game at guard. He played a lot of snaps and did a really good job. But it’s improving. It’s a constant improvement for all of those guys, J-Patt included. For those other guys, again, Zeke Correll hasn’t started a whole bunch of games. You’ve got two sophomores now that were freshmen last year, that played six games and two games. So there is still inexperience but they’re getting better. It’s those details that we have to continue to improve. Your fundamentals. The offensive line position, yeah, it’s about understanding exactly what you’re supposed to do but it’s the true fundamentals about where your hat placement goes, your footwork, that is what we got to get better at and the consistency of doing those fundamentals. I know Hiestand is just pounding them and trying to get them to the point of where they are perfect, but we know that’s a process to get to that point.”

DEFENSE

No changes were made on the defensive depth chart. At Monday’s press conference, Freeman was asked about leaning more on his starters rather than substituting as much as they do with the particular rotations. He’s more concerned with the fundamentals, rather than one player here or there .

“I don’t think it’s a guy that is causing the issues we’re having offensively. If that was the case, we’d pull him out right now. To me, it’s a challenge and I’ve talked to coach Golden about it, let’s figure out whey we are making mistakes. He was supposed to do this and he did that, we need to make sure we consolidate our package so there are less mental errors. If you really look at the last drive of the game where they went 95 yards, they converted on 3rd and 8 and Ramon lost the tight end. It’s a backed up situation, so maybe they are going to run the ball. He kind of lost the tight end that he had man to man. They converted there. Then you get a 20-yard pass with two missed tackles, Brandon Joseph missed a tackle, Cam Hart, that’s a 20-yard pass. Then you get a 42-yard run and there are four missed tackles. Marist Liufau is a guy I’d count on any day to make the play in the B-gap, Jordan Botelho missed a tackle, we missed a tackle in the middle of the field and there is 42 yards. That was the result of that drive. It’s not a person. It’s the fundamentals. How do we get better at tackling? How do we get better at our fits and make sure we aren’t confusing ourselves.”

SPECIAL TEAMS

No changes were made on the specialist's depth chart this week. Bryce McFerson continues to be one of the walking wounded for the Irish.

“Chris Smith had a hyperextended elbow. He was practicing yesterday. He’ll be in a brace, but he’ll be good to go. Gi’Bran Payne is good. Bryce McFerson is still out right now. Mitchell Evans and Jadarian Price are both out of the boot but not cleared. Mitch is a lot closer than Price, but Mitch just got out of the boot and is still working his way back. Probably in the next three weeks you’ll see more of Mitchell Evans.”