As of today the Texas Longhorns have three weeks remaining until spring football begins.

Heard is going to be given a chance to compete for the job, but he needs to be able to separate from Swoopes this spring.

Charlie Strong has made several mentions since the end of his first season that 6-7 isn't the standard at Texas, and nobody is happy the way the 2014 season ended. While that's certainly the attitude Longhorn fans want to see the leader of their program, the reality is Strong's second season on the job might pose greater challenges.

The Longhorns are unsettled at quarterback, will be changing the offense, have to deal with multiple critical losses on defense and won't have the luxury of welcoming several talented newcomers to the program until the summer. The list of things Strong and his staff need to accomplish the spring is lengthy, but there are three main questions facing the Longhorns with spring practice right around the corner.

1. Will there be separation at the quarterback position?

Many Texas fans are hoping they've seen the last of Tyrone Swoopes at the quarterback position. After a promising string of games in the middle of the season where he made winning plays, the sophomore seemed to digress to the point that by the time the bowl loss to Arkansas ended there was a good chunk of the fanbase ready to move on from him.

The coaches don't appear to have a ton of confidence in him based on the word that's been coming out of the Forty Acres since the end of the season, but nevertheless, it'll be a two-man race for the quarterback position this spring between Swoopes and Jerrod Heard. The offense is going to change, by all indications it's a move to better suit a quarterback with Heard's true dual-threat skill set. But more than scheme, the Longhorns need someone to go out and win the job outright.

The quicker this position gets settled, the better the Longhorns will be in getting the ship moving swiftly in the right direction. What would be a worst case scenario, is if Heard is unable to pull away from Swoopes and if the coaches feel they have two quarterbacks who can't pull away from each other.

If the coaches have indeed done as many fans have and are ready to move on from Swoopes, Heard has to be able to separate himself this spring and show the coaches he's capable of being the guy. The less uncertainty the Longhorns have behind center once spring ball wraps up, the easier it will be for the coaches to truly establish offensive change.

Hopefully for Texas, this is the last spring for some time where uncertainty at the quarterback position rules the day.

Gray is one of the few veterans on the roster who seems capable and willing of taking on a leadership role within the team.

2. Who will emerge to fill the vacant leadership roles?

Texas is losing a lot of talent through graduation and Malcom Brown deciding to leave school a year early for the NFL Draft. At the same time, not having names like Brown, Jordan Hicks, Quandre Diggs and John Harris on the field and in the locker room means there's a huge leadership void that needs to be filled.

The thing about leadership is you have to be able to get it done on the field to not just be full of hot air, which is where the problem ultimately resides for the Longhorns this spring.

Johnathan Gray might best be suited to take a leadership role on offense, but have guys like Marcus Johnson, Taylor Doyle and Marcus Hutchins done enough to emerge as veteran leaders along with him? The same can be said defensively, where Desmond Jackson appears capable of taking on such a role, but outside of the fifth-year senior defensive tackle it would be up to Duke Thomas and veterans who played lesser roles last season like Peter Jinkens and Dalton Santos to take the reins.

What could wind up happening is the leadership will come from younger players who perform at a high level. Malik Jefferson needs to be put in a leadership position the minute he shows he's ready and guys like Jason Hall and Hassan Ridgeway on defense and Armanti Foreman and Kent Perkins on offense need to assert themselves as leaders.

Seeing how this teams comes together from a chemistry standpoint will be one of the more fascinating aspects of the spring.

3. What identity will this team form by the end of spring?

The answer to this question is largely dependent on the answers to the first two questions. That said, this spring is definitely a different time in the progression of Strong's tenure than last spring.

Jackson drew praise from the coaches before a foot injury against UCLA forced him to take a redshirt year.

The next few months aren't so much about weeding out the bad seeds and cleaning house as much as it is about finding out who are the big-time players within the program and who can emerge as leaders.

That's not to say there's 100 percent buy-in by everyone who goes to work every day inside of the Moncrief Complex. There's going to be attrition between now and the start of the season, but the real story this spring is whether this team can begin to take on the characteristics of how Strong wants his teams to look/play while he's in charge of the program.

There are fewer remnants of the previous regime this spring, so the theme is less about acclimating to a new way of doing things and more about the players simply doing those things as a second nature. The bottom line is, the identity of the team by the end of spring needs to be one that looks like it's heading somewhere rather than a group of players caught spinning their wheels while adjusting to something different.