Football is officially back on the Hill, as WKU has announced its schedule for spring practices along with their annual Spring Game being played Apr. 17.

The first practice of the season will take place on Mar. 16, continuing all the way up until gameday.

For the Hilltoppers, the offseason saw a ton of new coaching hires and pick ups from the transfer portal. With all that being said, head coach Tyson Helton recognizes the changes open up many opportunities for his players.

“Every man knows their jobs is up for grabs, so nobody has a starting job. You got to go out there and compete and earn your job,” Helton said. “I think our guys love that, I think they love competition. They embrace that fact, so it’s gonna make for a really exciting spring.”

Maybe the biggest new roster addition entering the spring campaign is the senior from Houston Baptist University in Bailey Zappe. The impressive quarterback comes with two of his Huskie receivers and offensive coordinator Zach Kittley.

With Zappe taking snaps, this begins what should be an interesting battle for the starting signal caller position with graduate Tyrrell Pigrome returning to WKU for another year.

“The quarterback position is what makes it go,” Helton said on what he’s looking forward to this Spring. “We’ve got some new faces there. Obviously you have the transfer Bailey Zappe’s here. He’ll be competing to try and earn a starting spot.”

Other than the quarterback position, the new guys have been clicking well with the Hilltopper squad already. This especially coming from the guys protecting the quarterback.

“As an o-line group we’ve had chances to really work with our guys,” redshirt junior lineman Cole Spencer said. “We feel pretty good about our unit so far going into spring ball.”

As much talk as there has been about the new transfers, the coaching staff really has not been able to see them in action. Starting today they’ll have an opportunity to see what the 2021 Hilltoppers are made of.

“We’ve been able to make enough evaluations off of their winter workouts, what they’ve doing in individual drills or walkthroughs all those kind of things to know what we’re dealing with,” Helton said.  

Football beat reporter Matthew Hargrove can be reached at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @MatthewHargrov1