Six games down and six to go in the regular season for Notre Dame. Who knows if they will see a bowl game at this point. The end seems so far away but at the same time the 2016 campaign continues to fly by as all college football seasons do.

The theme for this week’s depth chart remains the same as in previous weeks. On offense, the selection of talent utilized remains relatively small. Right guard Colin McGovern returned the starting lineup against NC State after playing sparingly versus Syracuse. The Irish continue to give the backup reps to Hunter Bivin instead of listed right guard Tristen Hoge.

We were expecting Tarean Folston back in the lineup last week but he was held out again. Brian Kelly mentioned the Floridian’s ankle is good to go now and that he’ll play against Stanford.

If you’re curious the offense core (defined by me here as playing at least 100 snaps this season) is as follows: Nelson, Mustipher, McGovern, McGlinchey, Bars, Kizer, Smythe, St. Brown, Hunter, Sanders, Adams, Folston, Stepherson, and Weishar. That’s 14 bodies while the likes of Dexter, Claypool, Holmes, and Boykin continue to play relatively sparingly.

Kelly brought up Peter Mokwuah whose ankle is better now and they like him as someone who can fill gaps in their 3-4 fronts. Mokwuah surprised by playing against Nevada but hasn’t seen the field before or since.

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Another injury concern could be cleared up soon as Dew-Treadway could come back to practice following the bye week. It’ll be interesting to see how quickly he can get into game shape and just how much he’d be used right now.

One week after burning his redshirt, Troy Pride didn’t see the field against the Wolfpack. In fact, the rotation in the secondary that’s become a theme this year was quite limited last weekend. Tranquill and Studstill took nearly all the reps at safety, while Love and Luke did the same at corner. The promising Donte Vaughn also got in on 23 snaps at corner, as well.

Halfway through the season here’s the redshirt situation with the freshmen:

REDSHIRT

QB Ian Book
RB Tony Jones Jr.
RB Deon McIntosh
OL Tommy Kraemer
OL Liam Eichenberg
OL Parker Boudreaux
DL Ade Agundeji
LB Jonathan Jones
S Spencer Perry
S D.J. Morgan
LS John Shannon

Although you can never really say for sure it’s pretty safe to say no one on the above list will be forced to play this season. It’s an interesting group, just about who you’d think would’ve taken a redshirt this year but not a collection of talent that seems like it’s going to make any waves in 2017, particularly with all the projected starters and two-deep coming back next fall.

NO REDSHIRT

WR Chase Claypool
WR Kevin Stepherson
WR Javon McKinley
DL Julian Okwara
DL Khalid Kareem
DL Daelin Hayes
LB Jamir Jones
CB Julian Love
CB Donte Vaughn
CB Troy Pride
S Devin Studstill
S Jalen Elliott

There’s too much drama going on now for it to be making news but in the off-season there’s going to be a lot of talk about wasting eligibility. As many as 5 of the above players are basically wasting this year playing 95% of the time on special teams. For example, McKinley has played 8 snaps this year.

Using a wide receiver like that usually isn’t the worst thing in the world. It’s those defensive linemen like Kareem (15 snaps) and Okwara (18 snaps) that we’re going to wish we got this year back when the dust settles.