Frank Ordoñez / The Post-Standard

By Dave Cooperman

How far has Marcus Sales fallen that his exclusion from the depth chart was met with nothing more than a yawn?  I repeat, Marcus Sales is not even listed.  He is apparently on the team though you would be best served waiting for that other shoe to drop at some point.  Sales somehow managed to fall behind Steve Rene and Dorian Graham.  I refuse to believe that talent alone dictated this and have to speculate that something else is going on – either personal or an attitude – but whatever the case this would be a surprising conclusion had the writing not been on the wall for the past week.

I am fairly surprised to see Jose Cruz, the Hofstra castoff, beat out Nick Provo for the starting TE spot.  Cruz may end up being a revelation and maybe Provo finds a role in the offense, but either way this position will be severely tested with limited depth.  At some point down the road I would love to see the freshman Beckett Wales see some action.

Sophomore Zack Chibane beat out redshirt senior Adam Rosner and I applaud Marrone for calling upon the younger player to step up.  Marrone wants to talk of a new culture and attitude and that means more than throwing guys of the team.  His guys have to play and with no disrespect to Rosner, the tie has to go to Marrone’s recruits at this point.

Shamarko Thomas is going to learn a tough lesson about getting hurt and missing practice.  There is no way Max Suter is as good of player as Shamarko at this point, but Suter was practicing and he earned the right to start the year on the field.  Will this arrangement last past the first game? Probably not.

The transition for Deon Goggins hasn’t been quite as easy as everyone had hoped.  He was unable to crack the two deep and will have some work to do to contribute at defensive tackle.

You could probably get away from calling this is a depth chart since depth seems to be missing from a few critical positions.  Any realistic observer would call the crop of WR’s, TE’s, OL, and DE’s thin at best.  The defensive backfield on the other hand is loaded with capable players and the youth at linebacker is definitely an exciting development.