Blakeney was the recipient of the Johnny Vaught Lifetime Achievement Award by the All-American Football Foundation in 2000.
[1] On December 21, 2010, he received the Sun Belt Conference 10th Anniversary Most Outstanding Head Coach award.
He was part of the inaugural class along with DeMarcus Ware, Don Maestri, Chase Riddle, Bill Atkins, Sim Byrd, Denise Monroe, Vergil McKinley, Ralph Adams, Mike Turk, and Charles Oliver.
He missed the entire season with a shoulder injury, but resumed play in 1969 as Auburn posted an 8–3 record.
Blakeney took over a program that had won NCAA Division II Football Championships in 1984 and 1987, but was 13–17 the previous three years.
The first full year at Division I-AA, the Trojans made it to the semifinal game and finished 12–1–1, 10–0–1 in the regular season.
The transition made Blakeney one of two coaches to ever take a football team from Division II to I-A—the other is UCF's Gene McDowell.
[3] Blakeney retired at the end of the 2014 season after serving 24 years as head coach at Troy.