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The month of October belonged to the Magnolia State. November could be the Yellowhammer State’s turn to take the reins.
November will start with the two Alabama teams, Alabama and Auburn, ranked third and fourth in the AP Top 25 poll, respectively, and Mississippi State and Ole Miss ranked first and seventh. More importantly, both Mississippi schools were ranked in the top four of the first edition of the College Football Playoff rankings released Tuesday night.
The changing of the guard has a chance to start as early as this weekend. Auburn can redeem its loss to Mississippi State by knocking off the Ole Miss Rebels. It’ll be no easy task, and Ole Miss will be as motivated as ever coming off their loss to LSU last weekend.
If Alabama can get past LSU when it returns to action next week, they’ll have a good chance to establish themselves as the team to beat not just in the SEC, but in all of college football. The Crimson Tide get two massive home games later in the month; first against Mississippi State in a matchup that could go a long way toward deciding the West, and then the Iron Bowl against Auburn.
There’s a ton of football left to be played, and all of these teams have stumbling blocks left on their schedule. Auburn in particular has it rough, with road games against Ole Miss this weekend, followed by visiting Georgia and Alabama, but a sweep of those three isn’t completely out of the question. Alabama is better positioned to take control of the SEC of the two Alabama schools, but nothing is out of the question.
We’re about to see what the two Mississippi schools are made of. Ole Miss, which knocked off Alabama in October, is dealing with adversity for the first time this season. It’s already led to some interesting comments from their quarterback and senior leader Bo Wallace this week. One loss isn’t enough to definitively say the Rebels are struggling, but they sure didn’t look like a playoff team in Death Valley.
Mississippi State is showing some cracks on defense, but their offense is producing at a championship level. While inexperience is by no means a disqualification for championship contender status, we’ve yet to see how the Bulldogs will handle the November pressure cooker.
Meanwhile, both Alabama and Auburn have been with, with coaches that have championship pedigrees and many players that have been in the big games. It’s great to grab the headlines and top rankings in October. It’s another thing to hold onto them during the last month of the season.
The Alabama schools have been to the mountaintop and are sprinting to get back. Will the Mississippi schools be able to outpace them?
A former freelance journalist from Philadelphia, Brett has made the trek down to SEC country to cover the greatest conference in college football.
