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 an SEC Preview by Dimon Kendrick-Holmes, who runs the Moral Victory blog. As he is a Vanderbilt fan and alum, we turned to him for his take on the Commodores football program, and 2009 season outlook. Check out his predictions and an interview with him below.

Projected Conference Finish

Conference Championship: Vandy (just kidding)... Florida over Alabama

East
Florida 12-0 (8-0)
Georgia 11-1 (7-1)
Tennessee 8-4 (4-4)
Vanderbilt 7-5 (3-5)
South Carolina 6-6 (2-6)
Kentucky 4-8 (0-8)

West
Alabama 11-1 (7-1)
LSU 10-2 (6-2)
Ole Miss 9-3 (5-3)
Auburn 8-4 (4-4)
Arkansas 5-7 (1-7)
Miss State 4-8 (1-7)

Top 5 Freshmen/newcomers
1. Stephon Gilmore, DB, South Carolina
2. DeQuin Evans, DE, Kentucky
3. Zac Stacy, RB, Vanderbilt
4. Chad Bumphis, WR, Miss State
5. Dre Kirkpatrick, DB, Alabama

Top 5 Breakout Players
1. Ryan Mallett, QB, Arkansas
2. Mario Fannin, RB, Auburn
3. Jerrell Powe, DT, Ole Miss
4. Larry Smith, QB, Vanderbilt
5. Justin Houston, DE, Georgia

Player Superlatives

Player of the Year: Tim Tebow, QB, Florida
Offensive POTY: Julio Jones, WR, Alabama
Defensive POTY: Brandon Spikes, LB, Florida
Overrated POTY: Greg Hardy, DE, Ole Miss
Underrated POTY: Mario Fannin, RB/WR, Auburn

Bowl Projections

BCS Championship: Florida vs. Oklahoma
Sugar Bowl: Georgia vs. Boise State
Capital One Bowl: Alabama vs. Penn State
Cotton Bowl: LSU vs. Nebraska
Chick-Fil-A Bowl: Ole Miss vs. UNC
Outback Bowl: Auburn vs. Iowa
Liberty Bowl: Vanderbilt vs. East Carolina
Music City Bowl: Tennessee vs. Miami
Independence Bowl: South Carolina vs. Baylor

And now for the interview...

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

Dimon Kendrick-Holmes (DKH): I enrolled in Vanderbilt in the fall of 1986. Sure, great school, great city — and under Watson Brown, a dreadful football team. In my four years in Nashville, we won nine games, three in the SEC. But those players were true scholar athletes — if more scholars than athletes — and good guys who today are mayors and principals and surgeons.

My senior year, I went to the Vandy-UT game in Knoxville. We were 1-9 and the Vols were 9-1. Some orange-painted fans came up to us and yelled, “We’re gonna kill y’all!” And I remember looking into their crazed eyes and saying, “And?” Of course they were going to kill us. As it turned out, we led most of the game and silenced the orange crowd and then fell apart in the fourth quarter and lost 17-10. It was a moral victory, of which I’ve become accustomed as a Vanderbilt fan. Which explains the name of my Web site. Some fellow Vandy fans take issue with the name, actually believing we’re going to beat Florida this season and win the national championship, and our tailback, who looks like Harry Potter, is going to win the Heisman. Whatever.

As a Vanderbilt fan, I’ve learned you can’t get too low or too high. We’re never going to be a consistent national power. I get that. But as a Vanderbilt alumni, I can’t help but pull for football players who meet the same stringent admissions requirements and take the same tough classes I did, while competing in the toughest conference in college football. It takes a special kid to play football for Vanderbilt, and today those kids are almost as much athletes as they are scholars. And that’s something worth rooting for.

(G1): Describe the gameday atmosphere.

(DKH): It’s more laid-back than game day at other SEC schools. For starters, the stadium holds less than 40,000 fans, which means it takes less time to park and wait in line and all that. Vanderbilt has fabricated some traditions in recent years like the Vandyville tailgating village and the anchor walk, where the players carry a giant anchor and walk through the crowd to the stadium.

That’s fine, but on a crisp fall day I prefer tossing the football in Centennial Park, then eating a grilled cheeseburger at a nearby dive called Rotiers, then crossing West End Avenue and taking the long way to the stadium, which means wandering a while around campus, which is immaculate and beautiful, especially when the leaves have turned gold. The best part: When the Commodores score a big touchdown and the foghorn sounds and nobody in the stadium, friend and foe alike, can quite believe it.

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

(DKH): Bobby Johnson is the perfect head coach for Vanderbilt, a down-to-earth, even-keeled guy who’s dramatically improved the team’s talent and depth through years of hard work. And he looks like Steve Martin. Bruce Fowler, the defensive and assistant head coach, has concocted a nice scheming, blitzing, gambling defense that bends but doesn’t break. Robbie Caldwell, offensive line and assistant head coach, and Jamie Bryant, the defensive coordinator and secondary coach, are among the top position coaches in college football. Of the coaching staff, offensive coordinator Ted Cain by far catches the most grief from fans, who’ve long maintained that Vandy needs a quick-strike, smoke-and-mirrors offense instead of a grind-it-out offense specializing in the quarterback draw. But this season the Dores are switching to a no-huddle version of the spread that takes advantage of our lanky, athletic offensive linemen and sophomore quarterback Larry Smith, who ran the spread for three years on a 6-A state championship team in Alabama.

As far as recruiting goes, it’s never been better. After signing only a handful of three-star players in his first seven recruiting classes, Johnson signed 14 three-star players in February and already has verbal commitments for next year from 20 players, including 18 with three-star ratings. I know, that’s still not as good as recruiting at other schools; but at Vandy, it’s spectacular.

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

(DKH): Zac Stacy is a true freshman tailback with the shifty moves, quickness and big-play ability we’ve for years lacked at the tailback position. Before the season’s over, look for Stacy to be the go-to guy at running back, moving senior Jared Hawkins, the guy who looks like Harry Potter, into the utility back role for which he’s better suited. I’m also excited about James Williams, a sophomore tackle who rode the bench last season but wowed coaches in the spring, and Brent Trice, a 6-3 senior who moved from safety to linebacker last season but will be deployed all over the field by Fowler as a blitzer and attacker.

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

(DKH): Thanks to the coaches’ ability to tap into a growing middle class in metro Atlanta and the administration’s efforts to diversify the student body, Vanderbilt is deeper and more athletic than ever before, which means it’s in a better position than ever to at least compete in the SEC. As for the conference, its success has been built on defensive speed. Even Auburn and Tennessee, which didn’t go to bowls last season, had scary-fast defenses loaded with NFL prospects.

(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?

(DKH): I’m happy, I guess, though I wish the conference had 10 teams, which would mean more non-conference games for Vanderbilt. If I could change anything, I’d restructure the West to include Vanderbilt, Miss State, Ole Miss, South Carolina, Kentucky and Arkansas (12 Vandy wins in the last 10 years), and the East to include Auburn, Alabama, Georgia, LSU, Tennessee and Florida (three Vandy wins in the past 10 years).

(G1): How much did you like the bowl system pre-BCS? As a fan, how much do you concentrate on 'National Championships'?

(DKH): I loved the pre-BCS, when the bowls had No. 1 vs. No. 5 and No. 2 vs. No. 6 and No. 3 vs. No. 4 and I’d root for things to end up as screwed up as possible. Hey, I don’t think about national championships — I’m a Vanderbilt fan.

(G1): Are the polls a good idea in the first place?

(DKH): I don’t care about the polls, though I’d prefer for things to be decided on the field. But the whole country seemed to get a kick out of seeing Vandy in the Top 20 last season, and it’d be good for college football if the Commodores could win enough to get back there again.

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

(DKH): It’s always a bit of a letdown to see teams with weird uniforms in a bowl game, except for that one time Boise State ran the hook-and-ladder and the Statue of Liberty and beat Oklahoma. Most of the time in bowl games, I’d rather see national powers that don’t normally square off, like, say, Alabama and Ohio State, or USC and Florida, or LSU and Texas.