Put down the snow shovels, the ice scrapers and the gloves for a minute, or at least stop snickering at those of us who need them if you live in warmer climates. Winter marches on in all its various forms, but college softball season has arrived.

What do you need to know as more than 300 teams start plotting courses to Oklahoma City?

1. Where does Florida go from here?

One of the memorable images in the moments after the final out of the 2014 season was that of Florida coach Tim Walton and assistant Kenny Gajewski embracing like Yogi Berra and Don Larsen, circa 1956. For Walton, whose teams had been to the championship series twice and the World Series five times previously, the emotion on display seemed like jubilation, yes, but also relief. Years of work, disappointment and pressure made whole.

Three days later, after a day of traveling and two days of meetings, Walton was out recruiting. So much for savoring.

"I don't know for a person wound as tight as I'm wound if there is ever satisfaction in the winning," Walton said.

Not for himself, at least.

"The thing that I found to be probably the most special was to see what it has done for the career of Hannah Rogers," Walton continued. "Here's a good kid, works really hard, has got her degree, never did anything wrong or negative to anybody in her whole entire career at Florida, just worked and worked and worked. Maybe was criticized a little bit for what her work had been like at the College World Series level. And for her to go out the way she went out, there is the joy, there is the excitement. ... There is the worth."

And there, too, is the question on which Florida's title defense rests. As Walton knew in hitting the recruiting trail, a new season begins the moment the old one ends. And now the question is: What will the Gators do without Rogers?

Lauren Haeger (67 RBIs and a 1.79 ERA last year) is a force for Florida both hitting and pitching. AP Photo/Sue Ogrocki

We have now gone seven consecutive seasons without a repeat champion, Arizona being the last team to duplicate titles, in 2006 and 2007. The answers to so many softball trivia questions, Arizona and UCLA are the only programs ever to repeat. It is more difficult to get to Oklahoma City these days, let alone win there, because more programs than ever before play at a high level and because, with the addition of super regionals a decade ago, the postseason is that much more difficult to navigate. But after missing out on becoming the first SEC team to reach the World Series, play in the championship series or win a championship, Florida would like to become the first to win a second title.

To that end, the Gators' returning talent on offense and defense is among the deepest of any recent champion. Nine players who started in the field or were in the batting order in the final game against Alabama this past June return (Rogers didn't start the finale). Only third baseman Stephanie Tofft is gone from that starting lineup, and while she's no small loss, a core that still has Team USA's Kelsey Stewart, Kirsti Merritt, Lauren Haeger and most of those who compiled a .439 team on-base percentage a season ago will be fine. And this being Florida, a talented freshman class will push for time of its own, including among others, Nicole DeWitt competing with returnee Taylore Fuller at Tofft's vacated third base and Janell Wheaton doing the same with incumbent starter Taylor Schwarz at first base.

What's left to sort out is the pitching, which is not altogether different from the situation a year ago at this time. As good as Rogers was through the postseason, she was part of a true pitching rotation for much of the season, the workload shared evenly with Haeger and freshman Delanie Gourley. Walton cited that reduced early use, in addition to the changeup she honed with help from Gourley, among reasons for her effectiveness in May and June. Haeger, Gourley and freshman Aleshia Ocasio may operate with a similar division of resources early this season.

But it's difficult not to be intrigued by Gourley, who is everything we are not used to seeing in a Florida pitcher. The first left-hander to sign with Walton, she is also 5-foot-4. From Stacey Nelson to Stephanie Brombacher, Rogers and the 5-foot-11 Haeger, Florida pitchers have almost all cast lengthy shadows from the circle. That's not a coincidence.

"The length of a pitcher and the height of a pitcher, just like in baseball, I think is a huge advantage," Walton said. "Because they're just on the hitters different, quicker, and you can't account for that."

Gourley finished her freshman season with a 15-1 record and 127 strikeouts in 107⅔ innings. She struggled in conference play, allowing 41 hits and 25 walks in 39 innings, but with a national championship there for the taking, her coach gave her the ball for two innings of no-hit shutout relief in the clincher.

Size isn't the only thing for which you can't account.

"She was easy to not only like in the recruiting process but to love in the recruiting process," Walton said. "Just her competitiveness, her mechanics are fluid and smooth. She maxes out what she gets out of her body size. She is deceptive. She has a good rise ball, a good changeup. She's working on becoming a lot more aggressive and gaining that killer instinct that so many great pitchers have had."

It's a new world for the Gators. Maybe a diminutive southpaw is the ideal guide.

2. Which teams could end Florida's reign?

Alabama: Unlike other teams here (and as their respective fans are sure to point out, unlike World Series participants Louisiana-Lafayette and Kentucky), Alabama has to replace a pitching ace this season. And not just any ace, but the talismanic Jackie Traina, who helped steer the program to its first national championship in 2012. But like Gourley in Gainesville, Sydney Littlejohn showed signs of greater things ahead in her debut and should have help from freshman Alexis Osorio. What remains to be seen is the run production beyond Haylie McCleney and Jadyn Spencer.

Oregon's hopes of bringing the title back to the Pac-12 may ride on junior star pitcher Cheridan Hawkins. AP Photo/Alonzo Adams

Florida State: The Seminoles have two of the best dozen or so players in the country in national player of the year Lacey Waldrop and shortstop Maddie O'Brien. The bad news is they also need to replace five players from a lineup that despite ranking 16th in the nation in scoring didn't show championship depth in the team's long-awaited return to Oklahoma City. They need immediate contributions from freshmen and junior college transfers. On the plus side, in addition to Waldrop, redshirt sophomore Jessica Burroughs may give the team the nation's best No. 2 pitcher, too.

Oklahoma: The Sooners were spent by the World Series, with Lauren Chamberlain on one healthy leg and ace Kelsey Stevens a workload victim of her own success. Whether it's more Shelby Pendley out of the bullpen, well-regarded freshman Paige Parker or other holdovers, Stevens should have more support. And with Chamberlain and Pendley, buffeted by Georgia Casey, Whitney Ellis, Kady Self (in her return from a torn ACL) and freshman Nicole Pendley, Shelby's sister and the potential replacement for Destinee Martinez, the lineup will score runs.

Oregon: It's not an altogether different model than that of Florida State. Oregon ace Cheridan Hawkins might be Waldrop's main competition as the best pure pitcher in the country, and Karissa Hovinga impressed a season ago to such a degree that it's easy to envision her as the kind of No. 2 pitcher that Oklahoma had with Michelle Gascoigne when it won the title two years ago. One major difference is that Oregon plugged its lineup holes, created by the graduation of mainstays like Alexa Peterson, Courtney Ceo and Kailee Cuico, with some very familiar names. Georgia transfer Geri Ann Glasco and Nebraska transfer Hailey Decker should help Koral Costa, Alyssa Gillespie, Janelle Lindvall, Janie Takeda and the rest remain a top-five offense. It feels like Oregon's year.

UCLA: Fool us once, shame on you. Fool us twice, shame on us. Well, what iteration are we at in that sequence for a UCLA team that was once again lauded and once again exited disappointingly early in the postseason? And yet with talent on hand in Westwood, a trip to Oklahoma City is again the bare minimum expectation. In addition to Ally Carda, the Bruins still have Allexis Bennett, Stephany LaRosa, Mysha Sataraka and Delaney Spaulding. That should equal championship-caliber run support for Carda, freshman Johanna Grauer and others in the circle.

Five to keep an eye on: Arizona, Louisiana-Lafayette, LSU, Minnesota and Missouri.

3. Will Lauren Chamberlain make history?

Most of the records in softball that strike a chord are pitching records, because the pitchers have for so long been the sport's biggest stars. Whether it's Monica Abbott's 253 career wins and 112 shutouts, Cat Osterman's 14.3 strikeouts per seven innings, Nancy Evans' .938 winning percentage or all the space occupied in the record book by the likes of Courtney Blades, Lisa Fernandez, Michele Granger, Danielle Lawrie, Angela Tincher and the incomparably named Debbie Doom, pitching records are part of the folklore of college softball. They tell stories all their own.

Hitting records just tend to sit there quietly in black and white.

With just 19 more home runs, Oklahoma's Lauren Chamberlain will own the college career record. AP Photo/Alonzo Adams

There is an exception. And for more than a decade, an eternity when the NCAA game is barely 30 years old, former UCLA All-American and United States Olympian Stacey Nuveman was that exception. She may soon have company.

Oklahoma's Lauren Chamberlain begins her senior season with 72 career home runs, just 18 short of Nuveman's all-division career record of 90, a number that does resonate. Despite missing a third of her junior season with injuries and playing a substantial portion of those games for which she was available on essentially one healthy leg, Chamberlain still hit 12 home runs in 2014 after hitting 30 in each of her first two seasons. Healthy again, she has a chance to not just break the record but shatter it (only three other active players have as many as 50 home runs).

"As far as I'm concerned, it's pretty much done," Nuveman said. "Lauren Chamberlain can hit 19 home runs standing on one foot. As long as she stays healthy, it has been a fun run, but I'm pretty much already resigned that it's a done deal. And rightfully so. She earned it. I really expect her to get there this year, which is great. She is certainly a worthy ... I don't want to say foe, but I'm glad that she's the one who is going to do it, to be honest."

One of the best hitters the college game has ever seen, a social media star blessed with one of its biggest and boldest personalities, is on the verge of breaking its most meaningful offensive record. Let the countdown begin.

4. Wait, what about Lacey Waldrop making history of her own?

You know, the reigning USA Softball Player of the Year, making the Florida State ace one of the few winners of college softball's most prestigious individual award who will get a chance to win it twice? Waldrop will try to join Osterman (the all-time leader with three), Lawrie and Keilani Ricketts as the award's only repeat winners.

So Waldrop, who went 38-7 with a 1.13 ERA last season, will be in the race. So will Chamberlain. But who else is part of what shapes up as one of the deepest and most impressive collection of contenders in quite some time?

Ally Carda, P/1B, UCLA: A finalist a season ago and a newly minted member of Team USA, Carda has the ace up her sleeve of, well, not just being an ace. She has the potential to be a viable candidate for the award as a pitcher or a power-hitting run producer. Given that she's both for the Bruins, it's obvious why she's here.

Florida State ace Lacey Waldrop will try to become just the fourth player to repeat as national player of the year. AP Photo/AL.com, Vasha Hunt

Cheridan Hawkins, P, Oregon: The best pitcher on the best team is usually a candidate. If she's the best pitcher, period, all the better. Hawkins might be. Weigh the strength of the Pac-12, and her 1.66 ERA a season ago compared favorably with anyone's, including Waldrop. And only six returning pitchers struck out more batters per seven innings.

Haylie McCleney, OF, Alabama: Crimson Tide coach Patrick Murphy has said from the start that McCleney is more than a slap hitter. The outfielder showed as much in setting career highs with 10 home runs and a .697 slugging percentage a season ago while still stealing 34 bases and ranking 14th in the nation with a .444 batting average. And as always seems to be said at about this point, she is an even better show defensively than offensively.

Maddie O'Brien/Shelby Pendley, SS, Florida State/Oklahoma: O'Brien and Pendley, who is likely to see much of her time in the field at shortstop this season, are in the same predicament. They might be two of the five best players in the college game. But no matter what kind of power numbers they put up, how do they avoid losing votes to Waldrop and Chamberlain, respectively? One bonus for Pendley could be an expanded pitching role, perhaps even as a closer.

Sierra Romero, SS, Michigan: Another new addition to Team USA, Romero was second in the nation as a sophomore with a .491 batting average but also hit 18 home runs (halfway through her career, she is not all that far off the pace set by Chamberlain in that department), slugged .897, cut her strikeout rate and added consistency in the field. The difference between winning and losing the award might depend on the perception of the Big Ten.

5. What are names to know off the beaten path?

Western Kentucky: Given the duels that could have been against Louisiana-Lafayette's Christina Hamilton and South Alabama's Farish Beard, it's a shame for softball fans that Western Kentucky is no longer part of the Sun Belt. But the arrival of Miranda Kramer, and a whole lot of her friends, makes this team championship material in Conference USA and intriguing beyond that. The NCAA active leader in strikeouts, who showed that against big-time teams a season ago, Kramer transferred to Western Kentucky from IPFW along with Canadian national team outfielder Larissa Franklin -- whose speed will help offset the loss of Olivia Watkins -- catcher Dani Pugh and infielder Kayti Hanson. All are seniors who played their first two seasons at IPFW for current Western Kentucky coach Amy Tudor.

Sammy Marshall: One of the best stories in softball is the ongoing strength of a program that starts each season mired in the depths of winter in Fargo, North Dakota. But Summit League dynasty North Dakota State may also stand in the way of perhaps the best active player never to play in the NCAA tournament. As she begins her senior year, Western Illinois shortstop Sammy Marshall is the NCAA's active career leader in batting average at .455, a mark that if she sustained it through her final season would rank 10th in Division I history (and for all the surge in offense in softball, she would be just the second player in the past decade to crack the top 10). Marshall is also the Division I active leader in stolen bases but showed she can do more than one base at a time by hitting eight home runs a season ago.

Texas State: The Sun Belt may be a little off the beaten track (although as mentioned, Louisiana-Lafayette and increasingly South Alabama have something to say about that), but the coaching staff at Texas State is anything but unfamiliar. Former Olympians Kelly Kretschman and Cat Osterman are the newest members of longtime coach Ricci Woodard's staff. Osterman, who previously coached at DePaul and Division II St. Edward's, will work with freshman Randi Rupp, who was honored as the Lone Star State's Gatorade Miss Softball 13 years after a certain southpaw.

Megan Baltzell: In a day and age where even eighth-graders are recruiting targets, players who don't hit their stride or play in the right showcase events until, perish the thought, they're old enough to drive are bound to slip through the cracks. A player with the talent to hit in any conference, and who just happens to do so in the Big South, Baltzell is a case in point. While Chamberlain enters her senior season with a chance to surpass Nuveman as the all-time leader in slugging percentage, Baltzell is chasing her own bit of history. She's the only other active player with at least three seasons of experience who has a career slugging percentage better than .800. A season ago, Ball State's Jennifer Gilbert became just the 10th player in NCAA history to finish her career above. .800. And Baltzell does all of that at the plate while playing full time behind it on the defensive side.