College football depth chart changes, Week 1

From the first published lineups in mid-August through Wednesday, September 2, our chart recorded several hundred starting-spot changes across more than 70 teams. The list on this page keeps a rolling three weeks, so the count you see will shrink as August entries age out, and some names in this recap will already have left it. A lot of that volume is the calendar, not the coaches. When a program publishes its first depth chart of the year, every starter on it shows up as a new listing, which is why Utah State shows 31 changes on a single day, August 22, the day its first chart went up. A handful more entries are name-formatting corrections, the same player listed two ways, and we left those out of this recap. What is left is the interesting part: who actually won or lost a job.

Eleven quarterback changes, two of them at ranked programs

No. 13 Alabama listed Keelon Russell as its starting quarterback on August 25, ahead of Austin Mack. The same day, No. 20 Tennessee listed Faizon Brandon in place of George MacIntyre. Those are the two changes in this window that a national audience will care about, and both came from the first chart of game week rather than from an injury.

The rest of the quarterback turnover came in a cluster on August 25 and 26. Oregon State moved Braden Atkinson ahead of Maalik Murphy. Rutgers listed Dylan Lonergan over AJ Surace. Vanderbilt put Blaze Berlowitz in place of Jared Curtis. Tulane went from Kadin Semonza to Zeon Chriss-Gremillion. New Mexico listed Luke Moga ahead of Jack Layne, and Ball State went from Tyler Mizzell to Keldric Luster. Earlier in August, Buffalo moved Elijah Holmes ahead of Jason Wright on August 22, and Northern Illinois listed Taron Dickens ahead of Jalen Macon on August 21. Utah State's McCae Hillstead also appears in the quarterback column, but as a first listing on a fresh chart, not as a replacement.

The final three days before the September 5 slate

In the three days from Monday, August 31 to Wednesday, September 2, with week-one games in the books, 43 spots changed hands, and not one of them was at quarterback. The Big Ten accounted for 23, the SEC for 14, and the Mountain West for 6. This was a stretch of line rebuilds, secondary shuffles, and, at Iowa, a change of kicker.

Auburn touched more starting spots than any other program in those three days, ten in all, spread across the receivers, both lines, and the safeties. At receiver, Keshaun Singleton moved to the X spot in place of Chas Nimrod, Jeremiah Koger took over at Z, and Nimrod slid inside to the H, where Christian Neptune had been listed. On the offensive line the tackles traded sides: Jo Simmons is now the left tackle and Stanton Ramil the right, and Jacob Strand replaced Deryc Plazz at left guard. Up front on defense, Chris Murray is the new listed end, with Da'Shawn Womack moving to the BUCK spot that Jared Smith had held. The safeties turned over too: Eric Winters is now at strong safety ahead of Kaleb Harris, and Champ Anthony took Winters' old free safety spot.

No. 22 Iowa made seven changes, and four of them were on special teams. Caden Buhr took over both placekicking and kickoffs from Eli Ozick. Boston Everitt replaced Tanner Philpott as the punter and as the holder. On the offensive line, Cael Winter is the new center, which pushed Kade Pieper from center to right guard in place of Trent Wilson. On the defensive line, Will Hubert moved ahead of Brice Stevenson at left tackle.

No. 17 Washington also logged seven. The headline is at running back, where Quaid Carr is now listed first ahead of Jayden Limar. Kolt Dieterich replaced Landen Hatchett at center, and Ramzak Fruean took over from Isaiah Ward at right end. The return game was rebuilt: Rahshawn Clark now handles both punt returns, in place of Dezmen Roebuck, and kickoff returns, in place of Xe'ree Alexander. Hunter McKee took kickoff duties from Tyler Robles, and Luke Dunne replaced Hunter Green as the holder.

No. 16 Michigan moved Channing Goodwin ahead of Jaime Ffrench at the Z receiver and listed Nathaniel Staehling at weakside linebacker in place of Nathaniel Owusu-Boateng. Nebraska made five changes, four of them in the trenches: Gunnar Gottula is the new right tackle ahead of Tree Babalade, Owen Stoudmire moved to nose tackle in place of Riley Van Poppel, Jahsear Whittington took Stoudmire's old tackle spot, and Anthony Jones Jr. replaced Williams Nwaneri at right end. Isaiah Mozee is the new kickoff returner, replacing Jacory Barney Jr. Florida listed Vernell Brown III at the slot receiver spot, moved Brendan Bett from tackle to nose in place of Joseph Mbatchou, put Jeramiah McCloud at Bett's old tackle spot, and handed kickoff returns from Brown to London Montgomery.

UNLV rebuilt half of its defensive starters in one week. Lucas Conti replaced Landen Thomas at left end, Mohamed Altayeb took over at nose tackle for Poe Purcell, Kamuela Ka'aihue is the new weakside linebacker ahead of Blesyng Alualu-Tuiolemotu, and Dee Crayton was added at strongside linebacker. In the secondary, Denver Harris is now the left corner, which moved Quandarius Keyes to the right side in place of Avery Helm.

How this is compiled

Every change above comes from a diff of published depth charts. A move is logged on the day it first appears on our chart, so the dates are when we saw it, not necessarily when the coaching staff made the decision. First-time listings on a newly published chart count as changes, which is why the August totals run high; this recap separates those from real personnel moves. The list on this page keeps a rolling three weeks, so older entries named here will age out of it. Name-formatting corrections were left out. Every team's current chart is one tap away.