Spring football is finished, the NFL Draft is over and Jim Harbaugh is again storming Europe, which means we’ve entered the dregs of the college football offseason. That doesn’t mean we’re in a dead period, however. (Of course, you probably know that since assistants across the country are out evaluating at the moment).

This is a perfect opportunity to look back and also forward in regards to the offseason.

So in this week’s Thursday 10, we’re looking at the 10 biggest unanswered college football questions exiting spring ball.

1. Will the redshirt rule pass?: It largely got lost in the shuffle of spring game prognostication, but a widely supported change to the redshirt policy was tabled last month. An amendment proposing that a player be allowed to participate in four games during a redshirt year had near unanimous support from coaches, but the Division I Council last month opted to push a vote back on the rule to examine its impact on other sports. That’s not necessarily a death blow to the legislation. It’s just an ominous sign for a rule change that coaches have been pushing for a long time. The Football Oversight Committee will review the proposed change and report back to the DI Council in June.

2. Will transfer legislation change?: Sorry to get too rule-specific here, but there’s little doubt a change to the redshirt policy and a shift in transfer rules are the overriding stories of the offseason. Unlike the potential redshirt changes, there are far more questions than answers in regards to a new transfer rule. There are currently multiple proposals to alter the rule ranging from an academic-based ruling that would allow a player with a GPA above a 3.0 to transfer without restriction to an idea from the Big 12 that would allow athletes to transfer immediately after a coaching change. There are plenty other ideas out there and little consensus heading into the summer. But the NCAA is looking at altering what’s become an archaic policy. There could be movement with this as soon as June when the D1 Council will vote on a proposal that would prevent schools from restricting where an athlete can transfer.

3. How does Alabama’s QB battle turn out?: The first of a few QB battles that will appear on this list, Alabama’s is the biggest in part due to its status and in part due to the players in play. One, Jalen Hurts, is 26-2 as a starter and a national champion. The other, Tua Tagovailoa, is a former five-star passer who’s already proven he can spark the Crimson Tide on the biggest possible stage – the national title game. Nick Saban would love to keep them both, but we’ve already seen this offseason via parental truth bombs that it’s unlikely to happen. The winner of this QB competition is a Heisman contender. The loser will likely, eventually, become one of the most intriguing transfers of the decade.

4. Do any game-changing graduate transfers emerge?: There’s already been plenty of movement on the college football grad transfer market, and there will be more later this month when players officially graduate. Last year the big name that came around late was Malik Zaire. That didn’t necessarily work out for Florida, but Zaire, at the time, was viewed as a potentially season-changing presence. Is there one of those on the market this year? Maybe. The Ohio State QB competition is one to watch. The Buckeyes have at least two starting-caliber quarterbacks, and one of them, Joe Burrow, is eligible to transfer immediately if he opts to. If Burrow loses that battle he will be a very popular transfer target.

5. How do schools handle the spring official visits?: Ask coaches and recruiting coordinators around the country about spring official visits, and you’re not going to get much of a consensus. Some view it as an opportunity to get players on campus early and earn commitments earlier than they could’ve before. Others view it is as a disadvantage, with at least five months to go before the Early Signing Period.

Then there are other considerations: 1. Coaches carving out time from their evaluation schedule to be on campus for trips. 2. Schools juggling a limited number of official visit spots. 3. Schools parsing kids that are legitimately interested so early in a cycle. 4. High school juniors tripping so early in the cycle that they don’t know the coaches pursuing them all that well. There are plenty more, and it makes this initial year of spring OVs such an interesting topic to follow. You generally don’t know how a rule change is going to impact things until a year or two in, and schools around the country are sort of feeling around in the dark when it comes to this topic.

6. Are we done with coaching changes?: This might seem obvious, but does anyone remember the Sooners’ 2017 campaign under Bob Stoops? No, because it didn’t happen. Instead, Lincoln Riley took over as college football’s youngest head coach and led Oklahoma to the College Football Playoff. Stoops retiring in June is a rare occurrence. That doesn’t mean it’s a singular one. Am I suggesting that a similar thing will happen again this summer? No. Am I saying I envision a scenario or two where it could happen? Yeah. One way or the other, last-minute coaching changes are a thing to follow in the offseason. There are always a few that occur (on a position coach level), and sometimes, like in Stoops’ case, they shift the entire college football landscape.

7. Which team is primed for a big jump? It’s a small sample size, but we’ve seen a team with eight wins or fewer the previous season make a jump into the College Football Playoff for three years in a row. Oklahoma did so in 2015, Washington in 2016 and Georgia in 2017. Who’s it going to be this year? It’s a little too early to tell, but someone is going to make the leap from afterthought to contender this upcoming season like Georgia, Notre Dame and Michigan State did a season ago. If you’re looking for candidates, I’d suggest Florida State, Texas, West Virginia and Oregon among a few others.

8. Does Tennessee bend to Jeremy Pruitt?: I won’t weigh down this list with a ton of first-year head coaching questions. Yet Pruitt’s situation at Rocky Top is too intriguing to ignore. Pruitt exited the spring far from happy with his team’s effort – not to mention the fans – which is a rarity in the coaching ranks. Spring is generally a time for rosy optimism. That’s especially true for a first-year head coach working with a clean slate. Pruitt scythed away all of those positive illusions with his post-spring analysis, which makes us wonder just what the Volunteers are going to look like under his direction. Pruitt inherited a football program with a damaged culture, and he isn’t exactly dancing around that. How Pruitt handles the remainder of this offseason, ranging from a roster purge to a tone change publicly, will be interesting.

9. How do the rest of the QB competitions turn out?: I promised you more quarterback talk, so here we are. Generally, a third of the teams nationally reset their quarterback room each offseason. This year is no different. Some critical quarterback battles to watch for exiting the spring include: USC (Jack Sears vs. Matt Fink vs. JT Daniels), UCLA (wide open), Texas (Sam Ehlinger vs. Shane Buechele), Oklahoma (Kyler Murray vs. Austin Kendall), Ohio State (Joe Burrow vs. Dwayne Haskins), Michigan (Shea Patterson vs. Brandon Peters), Florida State (James Blackman vs. Deandre Francois), Clemson (Kelly Bryant vs. Trevor Lawrence vs. Hunter Johnson), Miami (Malik Rosier vs. the field), Texas A&M (Nick Starkel vs. Kellen Mond) and Florida (Kyle Trask vs. Feleipe Franks). There are plenty of others to consider, but don’t you read enough about quarterbacks already?

10. How does the new kickoff rule impact strategy?: Reaction around the country is rather tepid regarding the kickoff rule change. Yet, there is an important point to be made in its regard – skilled kickers are now at less of a premium than they were before. This is not to say field goal kickers don’t have a place; they always will as long as goal posts remain employed. Place kickers, however, not so much. The best of that group were able to hit what’s known as “sky kicks,” those boots high enough to force the ball to be caught in play while giving coverage units enough time to converge on the returner. If a kicker was especially skilled, he could pin a return man in the corner allowing defenders to funnel to him and pinning the offense back. Now that the ball can be fair caught in play, it eliminates the possibility of such kicks. Really, the play for kickers now will to boot the ball through the end zone. For teams without a strong-legged kicker, this could turn into a headache. Their best kicks to the corner will be fair caught, their worst ones will be returned and likely result in premium field position.

What does that have to do with the offseason? It’s going to be up to coaches to employ new strategies to combat the rule. The best will be able to turn it to their favor. The worst will lose field position battles every Saturday.