The calendar has flipped over to March and that means Northwestern football is back in action in the Walter Athletics Center. The team kicked off their seven-week, 15-practice window with their first spring practice on March 4.

The Wildcats posted a disappointing 4-8 mark in 2024 but a revolutionary run in the transfer portal has fostered optimism that Northwestern can get back to a bowl game next season.

Here are five key goals for the Wildcats as they embark on their run of spring practices.

This year marks an unprecedented change for the program as the first set of spring practices after the program was given leeway by the university to pursue transfers in the winter transfer window. They took up that newfound opportunity with gusto and have added 11 players out of the portal.

You can see the full list of who came in and out with WildcatReport's Transfer Tracker, and there are three names in particular to watch as presumptive starters: QB Preston Stone, WR Griffin Wilde, and LB Yanni Karlaftis.

The No. 1 player to get up to speed in that group is Stone. Head coach David Braun gave his boilerplate answer about loving the depth in his quarterback room on Big Ten Network on National Signing Day. But last year's starter, Jack Lausch, is moonlighting with Northwestern's baseball team on the side, and the other competitor, Ryan Boe, is a redshirt freshman who played in one game last year.

Braun has a penchant for playing his cards close to the vest and he formally announced his starter in 2023, Ben Bryant, and 2024, Mike Wright, when he sent them out for the first drives in their respective season openers.

Northwestern should give Stone, who has a sterling resume from SMU, the keys to the offense this spring so he can get as many reps as possible in offensive coordinator Zach Lujan's system.

Dispensing with a battle and giving Stone the the lion's share of reps quickly will be key to building his rapport with new targets like Wilde, who came from FCS South Dakota State. Wilde spent his freshman season under Lujan at SDSU in 2023 so there will be some familiarity there to help the transition, but this is his chance to get his first taste of trying to clear Big Ten cover corners and to build his bond with Stone.

On the other side of the ball, Karlaftis is a veteran presence coming in from Purdue, where he recorded 50+ tackles in each of the past two seasons as a starter for the Boilermakers. He can be penciled in next to Northwestern's own veteran, Mac Uihlein, as the Mike and Will linebackers at the heart of the second level. Just like Stone and Wilde, it's a top priority to get that duo on the same page with defensive coordinator Tim McGarigle before summer.

Of Northwestern's 11 transfers, three are on the offensive line: tackle Xavior Gray from Liberty, guard Evan Beerntsen from South Dakota State and guard Martes Lewis from Minnesota. Lewis is a recent add, committing on March 6, and won't be able to join the team until Northwestern's spring quarter starts on April 1, enabling him to participate in the final nine spring practices.

All three players have an exorbitant amount of experience. Gray, who was First Team C-USA, and Beerntsen, an FCS All-American, are in their seventh year of college football and both project to immediately plug into the starting lineup. Lewis, in his sixth season, is the only one of the three from the Power Four and figures to battle for the guard job opposite Beerntsen.

One of Northwestern's biggest struggles last season was finding consistency up front. Their offensive line went through a series of different lineups as tackles Caleb Tiernan and Ben Wrather were the only linemen to play all 12 games. Tiernan will most likely be the only returning starter this season.

Center Jack Bailey missed the last eight games, Week 1 starting left guard Nick Herzog missed 10, and a series of other nagging issues plagued the interior. Stone has flashed some mobility with 198 rushing yards in his healthy 2023 season at SMU, but he's not as proactive a scrambler as Lausch is. He needs time in a clean pocket to be at his best, a la Bryant, and the Wildcats need to build cohesiveness up front ASAP.

Lewis will arrive halfway through spring ball and coaches can then assess whether he works best as the fifth lineman, or if the open interior spot should go to returning players like Herzog or Ezomo Oratokhai, who started two games and played in four last season.

Northwestern should leave spring practice knowing the five they want to start up front, or at most have one guard position up in the air to sort out in fall camp. The line needs as much time together as possible so that they can start to build the chemistry and cohesion necessary to be ready for the fall.

Northwestern has lost their top two receivers and their top three tight ends from last year's team to graduation, in terms of receiving yards. It's time to find the next men up.

Wilde is the favorite for WR1 duties, coming to Evanston on the heels of a 1,154-yard and 12-touchdown campaign for the FCS Jackrabbits -- though it's unknown how smooth his transition will be to Big Ten-level football.

After that, it becomes a lot murkier.

The Wildcats also added Chase Farrell out of the portal to their WR room. Farrell redshirted his lone year at Stanford so the speedster has four years of upside to look forward to, but he hasn't played a college snap yet. Northwestern's limited returning production comes from a trio of Roman numerals: Calvin Johnson II, Frank Covey IV and Hayden Eligon II

Johnson is Northwestern's top returning receiver in terms of production, but he had just 11 catches for 121 yards last season, a big chunk of the 176 receiving yards in his career. Heading into his redshirt senior season, it's now or never for him to break through.

Covey has shown flashes during his first two seasons in Evanston that have been marred by injury. He missed all of 2023 and four games of 2024, limiting his production to 10 catches for 98 yards. Eligon came on in emergency relief, burning his redshirt and playing in nine games as a true freshman. But he had just four catches for 83 yards in that stretch.

There are six options in the receiver room competition but none have had a 200+ yard season at the FBS level before. Spring ball is a great opportunity for the staff to churn through reps and figure out if there are three players ready for the fall. Regardless, the Wildcats are likely to add a receiver through the transfer portal this spring.

The same goes for tight end. With the graduation of Thomas Gordon, Marshall Lang and Duke Olges, the only returning production from last season is Hunter Welcing, who had just one catch for 20 yards. Lawson Albright will also be back, though he has just two catches for 12 yards in his career and has primarily played on special teams.

Northwestern added Alex Lines from New Mexico State out of the portal, a veteran that has bounced around and played for four teams in the last four years. He will be in a battle with redshirt junior Chris Petrucci, redshirt sophomore Camp Magee and sophomore Patrick Schaller, all in pursuit of their first catch in the purple and white.

Two of Northwestern's ascendent stars on defense are in their secondary: cornerback Josh Fussell and safety Damon Walters. That junior pair can be penciled in as starters, but the remaining corner, safety and nickel roles are up for grabs amongst a crowd of veteran players.

Ore Adeyi is back, after missing all of last season due to injury, to compete for the corner role that was going to be his last fall. His main competition is Fred Davis II, a veteran transfer who started his career at Clemson and came from Jacksonville State, as well as Braden Turner.

Turner, now a junior, came into last season as a corner, ended up playing most of the season at nickel after Adeyi's injury, and then filled back in at corner when Theran Johnson, now transferred to Oregon, missed the Ohio State game. Got all that? Redshirt junior Evan Smith will also be in the two-deep mix.

Among the safeties, Robert Fitzgerald projects to play nickel. Memphis transfer An'Darius Coffey will battle for the safety spot opposite Walters, but guys like Garner Wallace and J.J. Lewis could also crack the depth chart.

There is versatility across the defensive backs room. Spring is made for the staff to work their way through the permutations and find the right mix.

In past seasons, Northwestern's work in the transfer portal would just be beginning. Maybe they had snagged one or two players, but admissions restrictions meant that the overwhelming majority of their transfer adds had to come after spring ball had concluded or, at the earliest, at the start of spring quarter in April.

In a normal year, concerns would still be swirling over quarterback, receiver and the offensive line. Instead, in this new era, there are 11 new Wildcats who are either taking part in all of spring practice, or, at the very least, nine practices. Key additions have been made at almost every position of need.

There is no denying the impact that TrueNU and Northwestern's NIL efforts have made, as well as the new streamlined admissions process that enabled so many transfers to enroll in January. New athletic director Mark Jackson also deserves credit in this initiative that levels of the playing field for the football program.

Still, this staff should continue to be aggressive in their internal evaluations. Previous cycles have proven that they can find key players in the transfer market into April and May. Now is the time to run through a spring stress test, identify weaknesses and make final tweaks before summer rolls around.