With the college football season rapidly approaching, Gatorsfirst.com is presenting a different take on the 2009 season every day for the entire month of August. We call it our ''Full Month of College Football Previews''. As part of the project, we are having fellow bloggers and other college football personalities from around the SEC and the rest of the nation give us their take on the current state of college football. This approach will allow us to bring you a much more in-depth look at the 2009 season than we could possibly provide on our own.

The next in this series is a Kentucky Wildcats Fan's take on the SEC, by Alan Rucker of OverThePylon. Here is how Alan described his site:

When the site known as OverThePylon was created, it was simply a way for some Ball State fans to come together, crack some jokes, and cover the Cardinals. Alan added Kentucky to that recipe, and suddenly, lightning struck. Sure, the internet has tons of college football blogs, but OTP is by far the best. That covers Kentucky. And Ball State. You can check out OTP at OverThePylon.net

Projected Conference Finish

Conference Championship: Florida defeats Ole Miss

Top 5 Freshmen/newcomers

Top 5 Breakout Players

Player Superlatives

Bowl Projections

Gatorsfirst (G1): How did you become a fan of your team?

Alan Rucker (AR): Becoming a Kentucky fan for me was simply the way it was. Blame it on The Dad, who grew up in central Kentucky and then traded Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck for stories about Adolph Rupp and Fran Curci when he raised me. It’s been a challenging few decades to follow the Cats, as I’ve endured humiliating losses, probation, and more than enough bad to completely outweigh the little glimpses of good. But the tide in Lexington does appear to be turning for the better. And that is quite a long time coming. We, as fans, can only hope that the tide turn now is permanent and long term instead of short term and fraudulent like it was with Hal “Who Needs a Punter” Mumme.

(G1): Describe the gameday atmosphere.

(AR): The Gameday atmosphere is sort of SEC Lite. While the atmosphere dwarfs a good majority of other BCS schools, it pales in comparison to most of the SEC. There is no Ole Miss Grove, no Volunteer Navy of boats on the Tennessee River, and no absolutely gorgeous Florida co-eds wandering around. Kentucky has our fair share of hot pieces though, along with a great atmosphere of blue bleeding bourbon fans, so we still rank in the Top 25 nationally I’d say. But just like recruiting, that isn’t even good enough for the top half of the SEC.

(G1): Give me some thought on your coaching staff. Are you satisfied? Do you wish your team ran different schemes? How is recruiting?

(AR): This coaching staff has been an interesting one to sort of grow with. Wait… did I say interesting? There’s a ton of other adjectives that could be used. At the end of 2005, you could say things like “hated” or “total and complete failure” and based on Brooks’ 9-25 record, you’d be correct. But then, for whatever reason, things started to go right. After three straight bowl wins, the Bluegrass is singing a different tune about Brooks. Nearly everyone who was a loud and vocal critic has been silenced. Are we a championship caliber team? No. Are we satisfied? Yeah… I think we are. If Kentucky football becomes a team that always finishes a game or two above .500 and makes a Bowl, then that’s good enough for now. We have never had this kind of success and I for one would just like to enjoy where we’re at instead of reaching for the next brass ring.

Schematically and X’s and O’s wise, I don’t really have too much of a beef with Papaw Brooks and OC Joker Phillips. While it certainly isn’t as exciting as Mumme Ball, it’s exciting enough, fundamentally sound, and certainly brings a ton more success.

Recruiting has been a bit of tough pill to swallow. Kentucky consistently does much better than in recent years in the recruiting game, but still finds themselves 11^th or 12^th in the conference in terms of recruiting. Last year they were consistently ranked 31^st in the country… and second to last in the SEC. That’s a tough situation for the Wildcats. Overall, though, the staff is improving. And that, in and of itself considering where they started, is impressive beyond belief.

(G1): Who is a player we might not know from your team that you are excited about this season? Why?

(AR): You should know all about the defensive standouts in Micah Johnson and Trevard Lindley, but the player I am most excited about seeing is Morgan Newton. The true freshman quarterback from Carmel, IN is big, athletic, talented, and pretty much the anti-Mike Hartline. Kentucky’s offense will struggle as long as Hartline is under center, but once Newton steps in, gets some experience, and has Randall Cobb to throw to, the sky is the limit for this young man.

(G1): Make one point about your school, and another point about your conference, you think is overlooked on the national level.

(AR): For Kentucky the thing that is overlooked is the fact that were they in any other league, they’d be a contender for the conference championship. People see Kentucky’s record the last several years only a game or two above .500 and consider us not worthy of landing in a Bowl. My argument is that going 3-5 in the SEC is like running through the Big East with 1 loss. For the conference, really nothing is overlooked since every single thing that could remotely be considered relevant, insightful, or worth reporting is.

(G1): What do you think about conference title games? Was it a good idea to add to 12? Would you change something about the conference?

(AR): Conference title games are the only way to determine a league champion when you don’t have each and every school playing each other. Ideally, you’d have a Round Robin similar to the Pac10, where each school plays each other and the team with the best record has the title. That means the SEC would need to cut two teams out. That ain’t happening. There are some downsides to the title game, namely a severe underdog could luck into a title (see: the MAC last season) but really, trying to avoid upsets is not good logic to use when attempting to defuse the conference title game argument. The conference itself is the premier conference in sports. Leave it alone.

(G1): How much did you like the bowl system pre-BCS? As a fan, how much do you concentrate on 'National Championships'? Has this changed in the last decade or so?

(AR): The Bowls before the BCS had tradition and history but no sense whatsoever. At least the BCS, as imperfect as it is, has stopped the possibility of like 9 teams going undefeated and claiming split national titles. So we have that going for us… which is nice. As a Kentucky fan, focusing on national championships is more reserved for basketball season, where we, much like Notre Dame football fans, can simply believe it’s our God given birthright to stomp ass and take names no matter how “good” we may be.

(G1): What sort of changes, if any should be made to the BCS system? Does this opinion put you in-line or out-of-line with other fans of your team and conference?

(AR): Everyone bitches about the BCS. The exceptionally loony will argue for a playoff. I just don’t get it. Football, much like life, is unfair at its most basic core principle. You'll hear people moan and groan about the BCS system and insist that a playoff is &more fair&. Of course, this is completely untrue, as a playoff, by sheer nature, is unfair. Is it &fair& that a team can have one poor game and not win the title? What if, given the 2008 situation, a team like BYU, ranked 16th in the last BCS standings at 10-3 had 4 good games and won a title? Is that fair? I can promise you that the resounding sentiment from the 15 schools above them in the standings would be a loud &Fuck no.&

So that leaves us with the choice of one shitty system (the current BCS situation) or changing gears to another shitty system (a playoff). For the teams that get screwed under the current system, there's an easy fix... don't lose. For fans, the media, or the blogosphere to sit back and bemoan the lack of inherent fairness in the BCS system is total buffoonery. It was never designed to be fair. It was designed as an imperfect fix to a situation that no perfect fix exists for. College football, by design, is subjective. And that, the fundamental nature of the sport we love, is the reason that a playoff is no better.

Complaining about the BCS not being fair is akin to bitching when the rainstorm outside didn't litter your front yard with gumdrops and half naked strippers. Why? Because that isn't what rainstorms are intended for. They bring rain. And your option is to accept that fact and move along without bitching about things totally outside your locus of control or you can stand on the lawn with your brass poles and your nipple pastys and hope things change. As for me? I'll take my BCS rainstorm and just thank whatever deity resides above me that I have this wonderful crazy obsessive sport to complain about in the first place.

(G1): Are the polls a good idea in the first place? Should they play a role in determining a 'National Champion'?

(AR): I would have said yes, but not with all the smoke and mirrors now in the mix for the Coach’s Poll. The Coach's Poll, in and of itself, is a bit ridiculous to me. For one, you are asking a group of professionals who are totally focused only on their own team and their opponents in one week bursts to evaluate the play and performance of 119 others over the course of an entire season. That's asking a lot, unless you want them to pawn it off to an SID or an intern, which I wouldn't be surprised to see happen far more often than not.

Second, you're asking coaches to be non-biased. A great theory, but nearly impossible, given that these polls play into the BCS rankings, and therefore BCS selections, and therefore BCS paydays which are split amongst fellow conference schools. If I'm a head coach who can let my school potentially have another million bucks for voting conference mates ahead of others, you can bet your ass I'll do it. Anyone would. It's human nature.

So for the coaches poll to have any &credibility& to begin with, we, as fans, are asked to assume that coaches will be informed, participatory, and non-biased. And the only way to ensure that's happening is to ensure that the public can see exactly how these non-biased informed voters are voting. More transparency is the answer. More mystery, more cloak and dagger, more smoke and mirrors does nothing. It only serves as yet another way for the major conference powers to be territorial, possessive, and discriminatory while playing in their BCS sandbox.

Media members voting on who’s the best football school is even more of a joke than coaches.

(G1): How much should non-BCS teams be included in the BCS- and other high payout- bowls? How much do you watch these teams?

(AR): As a Ball State alum, I watch them pretty frequently. But for anyone to act like the Utahs and Boise States of the last few years are the rule and not the exception is ridiculous. The fact remains that the Boise States and Utahs got into a BCS Bowl and held their own because they were damn good football teams. And if they played a schedule comparatively to the BCS caliber big dogs, they would have been there. I look at Ball State last year… 12-0 to close the regular season. But in reality, we beat Indiana, Navy, Western Kentucky, Northeastern, and a whole bunch of MAC schools. Not really BCS worthy. So I think how the BCS busters have to have an incredible season ensures that the teams that do make it are truly worthy.