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 the Dead Guy who runs the blog SEC Rebelations. As he is a Ole Miss Rebels fan, we turned to him for his specific take on the upcoming season. Also, check out the interview below for his take on the old bowl system, Houston Nutt's coaching, and split national titles.

 

 

Projected Conference Finish

Top 5 Freshmen/newcomers

Top 5 Breakout Players

Player Superlatives

Bowl Projections

 

 

My dad graduated from Ole Miss as did my paternal grandmother, so I grew up around Ole Miss. Being from Memphis, it was close enough to make it down there for lunch at The Beacon after church on Sundays and certainly a makeable road trip for football and the occasional basketball games. I pretty much knew where I was going to college from the time I entered high school basically, but my official campus visits as a high school student sealed it in stone.

 

 

 

There’s been almost enough written about the atmosphere in the Grove on a game day to fill Phil Fulmer’s dinner plate at Denny’s, but it really isn’t enough. Until you are standing around the perimeter of the Grove in the wee hours of the morning with your chairs and canopies draped over your shoulders, just waiting for the signal that the Grove is open, you can’t appreciate how special it is.

 

 

 

For the most part, I love the coaching staff we have in place. It’s certainly an upgrade over the Orgeron error era. Houston Nutt has seemingly learned from his tenure in Arkansas and hired an Offensive Coordinator in Kent Austin that he trusts completely. Austin installed an offense last year that heavily involved the vertical pass and Snead flourished in the latter part of the season once he and the team bought in. Tyrone Nix is a solid DC who’s been around the block a time or two himself. Mike Markuson is widely regarded as one of the best OL coaches in the country and he’ll prove this year why that is.

 

As for recruiting, as of the beginning of August, we’re a little behind the curve in commitments, but I’m not as concerned as some are. After the… ahem… large recruiting class we signed last year, we’ve got a limited number of slots available and the staff can afford to be a little choosy with who they sign. Last year’s class fit the team’s needs very well – studs on the OL, DL, and WR were needed and signed – and I expect next year’s class to be no different.

 

 

 

LB Patrick Trahan and RB Brandon Bolden are both due to have huge breakout seasons this year, but I think most dedicated SEC fans have at least stumbled across their names at some point. I’ll go with WR Melvin Harris. He’s a big body guy who can run. He’s a redshirt freshman who will pose some serious matchup problems for teams, particularly down around the goal line.

 

 

 

One of the major stigmas perpetuated by the media is the less than perfect history of racial harmony on the campus. Most of those people have never stepped foot on the campus though and are too lazy to write about anything else. It’s a topic they can write about with little effort and they know it’ll generate a firestorm of responses from both sides. From reading some of the pieces, you’d think Oxford was a town full of hayseeds still waiting on indoor plumbing. While that is true of Starkville, it’s far from the truth in Oxford.

 

There has been a major effort over the last couple of decades to break that stigma that is noticeable if you actually visit the town and not make assumptions about it based on what you read.

 

I’m pretty sure there’s nothing that’s overlooked about the SEC on a nationwide scale. Media members and bloggers from other conferences are always writing articles trying to find a way to elevate their conferences above the SEC and it always ends the same way… FAIL. But at least it keeps them busy.

 

 

 

I love the conference title games myself. They’re a necessity when you have divisions in conference. As far as adding to 12 games, I’m not so sure that was a good idea. It’s had it perks, sure, but it leaves a lot of teams scraping the bottom of the barrel to get a low level team to play. Ole Miss’ schedule for 2009 is a perfect example of that. Our administration has taken some well-deserved flack for the embarrassment they put together for the non-conference games.

 

As far as changing the conference goes, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. There’s too much going right in SEC football these days to change something just for the sake of changing it.

 

 

 

The BCS is the worst way to structure college football postseason except for every way that came before it. The pre-BCS bowl system was sufficient when you didn’t know any better, but...

 

As far as National Championships go, needless to say, as an Ole Miss fan, I’ve not concentrated on them very much in my lifetime. It takes a perfect storm of scenarios, often including a little bit of luck, to even put yourself in a situation to make a run at a title. It’s hard to say – except maybe in situations like Florida’s this year – that anything less than a title will be a disappointment.

 

 

 

You could fill the entire internets with suggested changes for the BCS system. It’s a flawed system undoubtedly, but at least it tries to get the best two teams in the country together for a championship game. I’d like to see a Plus1 format, but only when it would provide clarity… not just for the sake of getting another game played to sell ads and tickets. It would’ve prevented the 2004 Auburn situation where there were 3 undefeateds left after the season and, by default, one couldn’t make the title game.

 

 

 

In an ideal world, the polls would be nonexistent until after week 6 or 7 and no preseason bias would be factored in. The voters would judge the current season’s “product” based solely on what they’ve seen on the field so far. And as long as the BCS is in place – and it will be for the foreseeable future – the polls are a critical aspect of that.

 

 

 

I’ll grant you I watch very little non BCS football. When you get used to filet mignon, it’s kind of tough to settle for beef jerky. That said, I don’t have a problem with the yearly “BCS Buster” team that the media latches onto and hypes. As long as that team is undefeated and proves it can beat a team from the 6 BCS conferences, I say bring ‘em on. Most have handled themselves respectably in BCS games. Whether it’s from complacency or overconfidence from the opponents or the coach successfully playing the “no one thinks we should be here” card perfectly, they’ve made for some pretty good games along the way.