STATESBORO - The tickets. Family accommodations. Media requests. The flashbulbs. Playing the game is the natural part, but it's the other distractions and preparations that you forget about.

Adrian Peterson knows precisely what Jerick McKinnon is going through right now as he prepares for Super Bowl LVII (Sunday, 6:30 pm, FOX). Peterson was in the same spot - literally - 16 years ago as a member of the Chicago Bears preparing for Super Bowl XLI against the Indianapolis Colts. 

"I don't want to call them distractions, but more of points of preparation," Peterson said from his office in the Ted Smith Family Football Center at Allen E. Paulson Stadium. "As a kid, you remember sliding onto the floor to get a good spot to watch the Super Bowl on TV, so it was a joy to be able to play in that game. But so much preparation goes on behind the scenes. You're down there for a week instead of making an overnight trip. You have to figure out your parents' rooms, your family's room, who gets tickets and stuff like that. You had to make sure you had enough clothes packed. My teammates had to figure out when their families were going to come down, how many days of school their kids could miss ... stuff like that."

Peterson said each player was given two tickets but had the option to buy up to 12 tickets for the Super Bowl. He put his mother as the gatekeeper to his tickets and funneled all requests through her, something he learned at the NFL's Rookie Symposium as a good practice for such occasions.

On Sunday, McKinnon will join an elite fraternity at Georgia Southern, one that now has just four men in it. In the history of the program, only Fred Stokes, Earthwind Moreland, Adrian Peterson and Matt Breida have played in the Super Bowl as Georgia Southern alums. While McKinnon was on the same squad Breida was on for Super Bowl LIV in Miami, he was on th3 Injured Reserve and didn't suit up.

Peterson said one thing he wasn't prepared for was the amount of media in attendance and the number of requests he and his teammates got for interviews.

"Media Day was a little different," Peterson recalled. "I remember standing on the field, and it was like a volcano erupting. You see the waves of media coming out of all the different tunnels and wondering if it was ever going to stop. And it was like that all week. We had to check in each morning and do interviews if requested in a huge tent outside the hotel. So it was all a little different that week."

For Peterson, once he got to game day, he was in football mode. He admits the day is a little longer - and the halftime was extended - but other than that, he was locked in, and nothing was different ... except for one thing he remembers to this day.

"The flashbulbs on that opening kickoff was something I'll never forget," he said. "I was on the kickoff return team for the opening kick where Devin Hester returned it for a touchdown, and you just saw all the flashes of lights. As a kid, I always thought that was animation, and they did it to make it look good on TV, but it was real. When I was on that field right before kickoff, I had a 10-second flashback to being a kid watching the game at our Super Bowl party and just thinking some kid is watching me the same way right now, just like Matt and Jerick will Sunday. There's no bigger game than the Super Bowl. People who don't even watch football will be watching all around the world, so to be able to play in it was surreal even though we didn't come out on the right side of the game."

It would be the day after the Super Bowl when Georgia Southern alum and Washington Redskin defensive Fred Stokes would fully comprehend that his team had won the Lombardi Trophy with its 37-24 win over the Buffalo Bills in 1992.

"I remember the confetti falling, and I couldn't hardly breathe," Stokes recalled about the moments immediately afterward. "It was like a daze. I couldn't put it all together or gauge the impact of what it all meant. We were walking around like kids in a candy store, so happy, and if you saw someone and they had a friendly face, you hugged them."

Considered for game MVP honors, with 2.5 sacks, two fumble recoveries, and a caused fumble, putting an end to any Bills' comeback hopes, Stokes handled his numerous post-game media obligations. He finally got back to the team hotel hours after the game ended.

"It really dawned on me the next day when I woke up and walked through the hotel," Stokes said. 'Hail to the Redksins!' We won the Super Bowl last night! It was an amazing feeling."

Fifteen years before he was introduced as a starter in Super Bowl XXVI, he was riding a bus with his seventh-grade teammates back to Vidalia the day after their state championship game. Their route took them past Fulton County Stadium, where the Atlanta Falcons and Dallas Cowboys would be playing that afternoon. The boys begged their coaches to stay in town and take them to the game.

Ten years later, in 1987, Stokes was an NFL draft pick, standing in that same Fulton County Stadium, getting ready to play a game against the Falcons.

"I couldn't believe I was standing on the field that day, and I remembered riding by on a school bus," Stokes said. "That was a defining moment for me. When I speak to groups, I tell them not to get caught up in the moment, and I ask them to ask themselves 'where will you be ten years from now?'"

Without the technology available to snap cell phone pictures of the post-game celebration, then, this time of year, Stokes relives his Super Bowl experiences in his mind and brings out his Super Bowl ring.

Earthwind Moreland put on his first football uniform at the age of five, happy to be playing, never thinking that someday he'd be on the NFL's biggest stage and playing alongside future Hall of Famers.

"I didn't think anything could be better than winning the national championship at Georgia Southern," Moreland said. "I bring my (Super Bowl) ring out sometimes when I am talking to kids and banquets and events. I show it to them and talk to them about working hard, and what it is like to receive something that proves you have reached the very top."

An injury during his senior year in high school reduced Moreland's college scholarship offers. He decided to accompany his best friend, who was being recruited by the Georgia Southern men's basketball team, on his trip to campus. Moreland's unofficial visit produced an offer to join the Eagle football team as a preferred walk-on, and Moreland would wind up spending his collegiate career in Statesboro, where he became an All-American cornerback.

The athletic ability and character Moreland brought to Georgia Southern were sharpened on the practice fields on the banks of Beautiful Eagle Creek and prepared him for the challenges ahead. He played for six different NFL organizations and for the Rhein Fire of NFL Europe in the four years after playing collegiately before landing with the New England Patriots in 2004.

He spent a majority of the season on the practice squad, but was elevated to the official roster late in the season and helped lead the New England Patriots to a Super Bowl XXXIX title. New England broke a 14-14 tie after three quarters to defeat Philadelphia 24-21 for the championship.

"You have had two full weeks to think about the game, and the anxiety can build up," Moreland said about the preparations for a Super Bowl. "At the beginning of the game, you are trying to get those jitters out, and you almost can't breathe. On Monday night, you're playing in that week's big game. The Super Bowl is different, it's THE game, and it seems like everybody on the planet is watching."

And Sunday, everyone will be watching as another Eagle will soon be able to talk about his memories of THE game. And hopefully, McKinnon will be able to join the champions club that so many have strived to be in, but only two have joined.