As the calendar sets to turn to November, the race is truly on

As the calendar turns to November, the race in college football especially the SEC is heating up. 

To put it in a track analogy, teams have been bunched up in a pack for two months. Now they are hitting the bell lap and now it’s time for the separation to begin. 

Saturday night Texas A&M took the lead but the Aggies are by no means free and clear of the pack

Everyone in college football is elated with where things are heading into the final month. Never has November meant more to more teams than it does this year and that statement is especially true in the SEC. A league that’s set up to beat the hell out of each other the next five weeks.

Over the next month, everyone is going to present every scenario. Fans are going to dive into every possibility based on wins and losses. Who am I to pull for? What is the best possible scenario for my team this week? 

“I wish I could put blinders on them,” head coach Josh Heupel said of his team managing the playoff chatter. “That’s not real. Whatever the TVs gonna have on the bottom of the ticker, you know what I mean? But for us to have a chance to be the team that we want to be, man, it’s about being in the present. It’s about competing as hard as you can every single day to grow and play the way that they’re capable and then the unit is capable of and there’s still things on defense and, man, there’s a lot more things on offense that we got to clean up. But good teams get better and this team’s got to continue to get better.

Team	Nov. 2	Nov. 9	Nov. 16	Nov. 23	Nov. 30
Texas A&M (7-1)	@South Carolina	bye	vs. New Mexico St.	@Auburn	vs. Texas
Georgia (6-1)	vs. Florida	@Ole Miss	vs. Tennessee	vs. UMass	vs. Ga. Tech
Texas (7-1)	bye	vs. Florida	@Arkansas	vs. Kentucky	@Texas A&M
Tennessee (6-1)	vs. Kentucky	vs. Miss. St.	@Georgia	vs. UTEP	@Vanderbilt
LSU (6-2)	bye	vs. Alabama	@Florida	vs. Vandy	vs. Oklahoma
Alabama (6-2)	bye	@LSU	vs. Mercer	@Oklahoma	vs. Auburn
Ole Miss (6-2)	@Arkansas	vs. Georgia	bye	@Florida	vs. Miss. St.
Missouri (6-2)	bye	vs. Oklahoma	@South Carolina	@Miss. St.	vs. Arkansas

But the key for the month of November is not about what everyone else does. It’s about what you do as a team. 

It’s about winning and to do that teams have to continue to get better. Coaches say you make your most improvement from game one to game two. But if you want to be a playoff team it’s about who improves from week 8-week 12

I watched as many hours of college football has one human could watch on Saturday. And on this Monday there will be large overreactions to everything as there is each week. My over riding take away from Saturday is that there is not great separation in the SEC. Texas A&M’s second half was elite. Their first half wasn’t. Marcel Reed was terrific, but my guess is that they can’t score 30+ points a game by only throwing it twice as they did the second half, but the Aggies are a good team and a serious playoff contender. How does LSU grow and move forward after a second half meltdown?

Vanderbilt could beat anyone on any Saturday so they are a spoiler team. If Texas is going to be an elite team they have to grow on the offensive line. For as bad as Ole Miss was in the first half, they were equally as good in the second half. How much better do they get in key areas in November?

You can go on and on about every team which is why the separating factor is going to be growth. 

Who gets better? How much does Tennessee’s offense grow? They aren’t going to beat the teams they need or want to beat scoring 24 points and getting shut out in the first half. Can Nico Iamaleava find an elusive four quarter rhythm. The offense seems close, but how much do they grow starting this week as the come off an open date and take on a struggling Kentucky team. 

So what do we know about college football, especially the SEC heading into November? We know there is competitive balance. We know it’s hard to play your best every week. We know the next month is going to be wild and full of plenty of twists.

Who’s standing at the end? The team(s) that improve the most between now and Thanksgiving.