Competing for same job as previous employee

My company had around 500 people laid off last week with a large number of us in the same type of job function. Luckily there's a good industry for it in our city, but I just discovered that my previous employee and I are both being inteviewed for the same position (there may be more, but this position hasn't yet been published, we just both happen to each know people at the company who told us). I would love advice on how to handle this. We are both being open about it and won't have hurt feelings, but it's a small company and I'm not sure if it would come up in the interview process. I mean it would seem sort of unprofessional for them to mention they were interviewing someone who worked for me, but if they do what should I say? I would highly recommend him otherwise, but I obviously want the job ;)