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 the Southeastern Conference season preview, by Justin Hokanson. Justin runs the Gridiron Guru blog here. You can also follow him on twitter here, and get his college football recruiting updates on twitter here. As he's a longtime Auburn fan, we decided to get his take on their 2009 season outlook. Also, check out the interview below for his take on Gene Chizik, the BCS, and the underappreciation of Auburn's success.

Conference Championship: Florida over Alabama

 

Florida 11-1 (7-1)

Georgia 10-2 (6-2)

Tennessee 7-5 (4-4)

South Carolina 7-5 (4-4)

Vanderbilt 5-7 (3-5)

Kentucky 5-7 (3-5)

 

 

Alabama 10-2 (6-2)

LSU 9-3 (5-3)

Ole Miss 9-3 (5-3)

Auburn 8-4 (4-4)

Arkansas 8-4 (4-4)

Mississippi State 3-9 (2-6)

 

1 Bryce Brown, RB, Tennessee

2 Onterrio McCalebb, RB, Auburn

3 Stephon Gilmore, CB, South Carolina

4 Trent Richardson, RB, Alabama

5 Deangelo Benton, WR, Auburn

 

1 Aaron Hernandez, TE, Florida

2 Ryan Mallett, QB, Arkansas

3 Joe Adams, WR, Arkansas

4 Chris Culliver, S, South Carolina

5 Terrell Zachery, WR, Auburn

 

Player of the Year: Tim Tebow, QB, Florida

Offensive POTY: Jevan Snead, QB, Ole Miss

Defensive POTY: Eric Berry, S, UT

Overrated POTY: Russell Shepard, QB, LSU

Underrated POTY: Ryan Hamilton, S, Vanderbilt

 

BCS Championship Game: Florida v. Texas

Sugar Bowl: Georgia v. Oklahoma

Capital One: Alabama v. Penn State

Cotton Bowl: LSU v. Oklahoma State

Chick-Fil-A Bowl: Tennessee v. Miami

Outback Bowl: Ole Miss v. Michigan State

Liberty Bowl: South Carolina v. Houston

Music City Bowl: Auburn v. North Carolina

Independence Bowl: Arkansas v. Baylor

 

 

 

 

 

Justin Hokanson (JH): I grew up in Memphis, Tennessee, and actually wasn’t an Auburn fan until I was 10 years old. When we moved to Birmingham, Alabama, I had to choose either Auburn or Alabama. My mother graduated from Auburn, so becoming a diehard Auburn fan was easy. Since then it’s been all orange and blue and I’ve been going to Auburn games regularly since 1995.

 

 

 

(JH): Auburn has a very unique gameday atmosphere. Auburn, Alabama itself is a small, college town. So it gets crowded, and the whole town is devoted to Auburn football, so it makes for a fun setting on a fall Saturday. RV’s start getting into Auburn on Wednesday, and by midday Thursday most of the RV’s are in place.

 

The most special thing about a gameday in Auburn is experiencing “Tiger Walk”. Many colleges have tried to copy the tradition that goes back almost 30 years, but none have quite equaled it. The players arrive on campus around two and a half hours before kickoff and are dropped off at the athletic dorms, which is a small distance up from the stadium. Thousands of Auburn fans line the street and form a pathway for the coaches and players to walk through on their way to the stadium. For big games, there can easily be 10-20,000 fans there to cheer on the team.

 

It’s a very friendly atmosphere that I encourage all SEC football fans to experience. It won’t be a trip you will regret, regardless of whether your team wins or loses.

 

 

 

(JH): Although Gene Chizik was a controversial hire at the time, he was methodical in his process of hiring of a staff and it seems to have payed off.

 

Chizik surprised all Auburn fans in the quality of the staff he was able to put together and certainly calmed the fears of many Auburn fans and allowed them to turn to some optimism for 2009.

 

Chizik’s biggest hire had to be offensive coordinator Gus Malzahn, who came to Auburn from Tulsa. Malzahn guided Tulsa to the nation’s top offense the last two years, and was also the offensive coordinator for Arkansas when they went to the SEC championship game in 2006. Malzahn brings creativity and adaptability to an offense that needs a lot of improvement from 2008.

 

On defense, Chizik went and hired Minnesota defensive coordinator Ted Roof. Roof was a head coach at Duke, and before that was a defensive coordinator at Georgia Tech. Roof brings a similar philosophy as Chizik and seems to fit in well with the Auburn staff.

 

The two coaches that have made the most noise so far seem to be wide receiver coach Trooper Taylor and running back coach Curtis Luper, both of whom Chizik hired away from Oklahoma State. Both coaches are qualify position coaches, but elite recruiters.

 

Former Ole Miss defensive line coach and former Auburn great, Tracy Rocker was also hired back to Auburn. Rocker brings his legendary status back to Auburn having won the Outland Trophy and Lombardi Award in his time at Auburn.

 

The rest of the staff is rounded out by safeties coach Tommy Thigpen, who was hired away from his alma mater in North Carolina and is known as a big time recruiter. Offensive line coach Jeff Grimes comes to Auburn from Colorado and so far is known as a player’s coach that has bonded well with the players so far. Cornerback coach Phillip Lolley was rehired onto the Auburn staff after working in the administration side for a few years, but was the secondary coach at Auburn when Chizik was the defensive coordinator during Auburn’s perfect season in 2004. Jay Boulware rounds out the staff as special teams coach, and is the only coach brought over from Chizik’s Iowa State staff.

 

Recruiting wise, this staff is in the top half of the conference without doubt. The creativity and excitement they bring to recruiting has already carried over to the Auburn fanbase, and considering they have only a 5-7 season to sell to this point, are doing an excellent job. At one point in earlier in the spring, Auburn was named leader by the top three running backs in the nation. Obviously Auburn fans would be thrilled with getting one of the three, but the fact that the new coaching staff can make that kind of impact so quickly, and with only a losing record to sell from last season, it says volumes about their ability to sell Auburn as a program and it’s future.

 

 

 

(JH): Terrell Zachery. Zachery is a junior wide receiver who while in high school, set the Alabama state high school record for career touchdowns. His first two years have been mired in mediocrity, but with some dropped weight and a new chance, Zachery could excel in Gus Malzahn’s new offense in 2009.

 

 

 

(JH): Auburn might not receive enough credit for the success they’ve had the last twenty five years. Auburn isn’t a state school, competing with a traditional power in Alabama year in and year out. They are also surrounded by Georgia, Tennessee, Florida, and LSU. So when they go recruit, they have to be very smart in where they go, and who they go after. There aren’t many non state schools that have had the kind of success that Auburn has had over the last twenty five years, winning five SEC championships, and having a 13-0 season as well.

 

 

 

(JH): I think every conference should play a conference championship game. It brings in revenue to your conference that you should never turn down. It also brings extra attention and added fanfare that just helps grow your conference in popularity and excitement. Maybe most importantly though, if we ever want to advance the sport into a playoff, we will need a fair way to determine conference champions, and since the SEC, ACC, and the Big 12 already have conference championships, the next step will be to get the other conferences to add a championship game as well and that way all conference champions are crowned equally.

 

I like the way the SEC schedule plays out right now. Each team has their traditional rival from the other division that they play such as Auburn playing Georgia, and Tennessee playing Alabama. The 2 and 1 rotation is a good way to do it, to rotate two teams from the other division onto the schedule, while keeping one constant rival every year.

 

 

 

(JH): Well obviously looking at the current BCS system we have now, it’s much better than the bowl system we used to have, but it still has its problems. The current BCS system though is ultimately pretty fair overall, but when it gets it wrong, it really gets it wrong. Like Auburn being left out in 2004, Oregon being left in 2001, and USC being left out in 2003.

 

As a fan of the SEC, the conference championship is the number one goal. Period. The great thing about the SEC is the tradition that it’s built upon, and winning a conference championship is all about bragging rights. Holding up the SEC logo sign and being crowned SEC champion is a special thing to all SEC teams and fans, mostly because most regard the SEC as the best conference in the nation. There is a certain prestige to being an SEC champion.

 

Also as we’ve seen over the last three years, if you win the SEC championship, you have an outstanding shot at playing for a national title.