Official Gopher Depth Chart for USC

Jerry Kill released his week 1 depth chart and here it is for your consumption with some notes to follow.

There really are not a ton of surprises here. Shortell earned the 2nd string QB role, the offensive line is exactly what we expected and the linebackers are not changing. What may have been a slight mystery or surprise is that Moulton is the #2 receiver, Ben Perry will be starting at DE and the Minnesota safeties are officially the starters.

Remember when Ben Perry was signed and there were a lot of people believing it was a waste of a scholarship? He played some for maybe the highest profile program in Texas yet didn't earn a scholarship from anywhere except Minnesota. The assumption was Tim Brewster was wasting this scholarship to make inroads at Southlake Carroll, but Perry would never be a Big Ten player. He may still never be a decent Big Ten player but he earned a starting job over KGM, Matt Garin and Simpson as a freshman.

This team is more experienced than we've seen in a while with 2 redshirt freshmen starting but several other freshmen (true and redshirted) listed as second string. Interesting that we have eight freshmen on the offensive 2-deep. Better hope for a healthy offense!