CFB DeptHITS: Thursday, September 26
We are gearing up for a big week five across college football. Get caught up on the latest impactful news affecting depth charts here.
We make hundreds of little tweaks to our live depth charts every day. This feature is designed to draw out the “big” ones and provide you with a little context. Each “hit” has a link to the full depth chart page at CFBDepth.com and we encourage you to check it all out…
We’ll start with the “need to knows” from the first set of SEC availability reports for week five:
Texas ::: RBs Velton Gardner (out) and Colin Page (questionable) join the list of injuries in that running back room. Backup S Derek Williams Jr. is listed as "doubtful" for week five. Yes, Quinn Ewers is still "questionable" and is a 50/50 shot to play week five.
Mississippi State ::: WR Creed Whittemore joins the list of "Out". Also notable that S DeAgo Brumfield is not listed and may make his 2024 debut in week five.
Ole Miss ::: Includes a lot of names, but the one that sticks out is S Louis Moore as doubtful and DE Jared Ivey as probable to return week five. Also, TE Dae'Quan Wright is listed as probable after making it through minimal snaps in week four.
Auburn ::: CB Champ Anthony is confirmed out (and likely for the season); OL Izavion Miller and DL Isaiah Raikes were added as "questionable" for week five. K Alex McPherson remains questionable as he works back.
Oklahoma ::: WR Nic Anderson is out for week five. WR Andrel Anthony remains doubtful and RB Taylor Tatum joins him on that list. K Tyler Keltner is a new one and will miss week five. Good news is that there is no DL Da'Jon Terry on the list and he is okay after a scare in week four. See the full Sooners Injury & Status report on the tab on their team page.
Georgia ::: RB Roderick Robinson, WR London Humphreys and OL Tate Ratledge officially out. DL Warren Brinson is now probable for the first time this season.
James Madison ::: Both RB Ayo Adeyi and OL Tyshawn Wyatt do not appear on the week five depth chart and appear to remain sidelined.
Baylor ::: QB Dequan Finn will remain sidelined for week five; allowing another start from Sawyer Robertson. DL Garmon Randolph (ankle sprain) will be questionable to play.
Virginia Tech ::: S Jalen Stroman is expected to remain sidelined for the week five game.
Texas A&M ::: C TJ Shanahan was hurt in the week four game and has been ruled out for week five. Koli Faaiu will get the start and he is more than capable to handle the spot. He's been there primarily after the season-ending injury to Mark Nabou earlier this year.
UNLV ::: RB Michael Allen is leaving the program. The reason for his departure has nothing to do with NIL and more to do with the 4-way time share he was fighting with for carries.
As was expected, Hajj-Malik Williams will take over as the starting quarterback in Vegas after the sudden departure of Matthew Sluka.
Boise State ::: RB Jambres Dubar was "emergency only" a week ago and should be available for week five. Both OL Mason Randolph & Roger Carreon will remain out week five, but are not expected to season-ending injuries.
|||||| PLAYER RATING UPDATE
We will use the “Hits” to let you know of certain programming and updates to our processes over at the site from time-to-time. Only the big stuff. We think this one qualifies. We have made a pretty significant change to our player rating algorithm. We are putting a higher weight on current season ratings. We still do take into consideration past performance, but we were seeing the ratings (and subsequent rankings) falling behind a bit in responsiveness to what we are seeing on the field in 2024. Thus, we made this change and the team ratings/rankings are in a better place going forward.
dWIN Advanced Stat :::
Also, if you haven’t seen our new "dWIN” advanced metric. You should check that out. It’s a way of looking at the “deserved” wins for each squad in 2024. Taking into account “post-game win expectancy” numbers from collegefootballdata.com and also looking at turnover margin (which has a certain luck factor) and other data points, our attempt is to show you
|||||| READY FOR WEEK FIVE
As you may know, we make meticulous updates to each depth chart prior to each weeks game. We have moved all of the teams playing in week five to that point. Here are the ones we finished up in the last 24 hours:
UT-Martin at Kennesaw State
Wagner at Florida Atlantic
Tulsa at North Texas
South Alabama at LSU
Florida State at SMU
That’s our show for today. As always, please subscribe / like / share … it really does fuel this work. Thank you.
