Spring practice windows open across the Power 4 in March, and the programs that moved fastest — either in the hiring cycle or in the portal — will enter those eight weeks with a real advantage over organizations still assembling their rosters.

The most interesting spring to watch is at Penn State, where James Franklin's abrupt mid-season departure and the hire of Greg Schiano has created genuine uncertainty about what direction the program is heading. Schiano built Rutgers into a competitive program twice, so the pedigree is there. What isn't there yet is any clarity about whether Penn State's returning roster fits what Schiano wants to do. The spring will answer that question, but it will do so publicly, in front of a fan base that is still processing what happened in October.

Georgia under Kirby Smart is entering its spring in a position most programs would envy: a healthy returning quarterback in Carson Beck, a recruiting class that once again finished in the top three nationally, and a defensive roster deep enough that coaches can experiment with role assignments without creating real vulnerability. For Smart, spring is evaluation of margins — who emerges from depth chart competition, who improves at the technical details, who handles the physical demands of the new strength and conditioning cycle well enough to be counted on in September.

LSU's situation is more complex. The transition from Brian Kelly to Charlie Strong — who returns to the SEC as head coach after stints at Texas and South Florida — began the adjustment to a different offensive identity. Strong's track record is not uniformly encouraging, but his understanding of SEC football is genuine, and the recruiting class LSU assembled after Kelly's departure was better than most programs would have pulled in a comparable situation. Spring will tell us whether the 2026 roster is a year away from competing or two.

The transfer portal's February window closed last week, which means most programs now know what their rosters look like heading into spring. The programs that didn't solve their depth problems in January and February are entering spring hoping development from within fills the gaps. That's a less reliable plan than it used to be.