When the early stats don’t match the early narratives

It’s part of the nature of the preseason that we hear the stories about how happier days are coming for some schools.  Weaknesses get addressed, geniuses get hired, etc.  In only two weeks, some of these narratives have taken on water and appear to be sinking, but there are others where it’s too soon to tell how things will play out.

Like these three.

• Auburn. I bet you didn’t know that Troy racked up 34 points and 488 yards of offense against Georgia last year.  OK, maybe you did.  In the three Auburn games where Franklin has been directing traffic, the Tigers have averaged 28 points and 403 yards per game.  So I’ve gotta ask, do Clemson, Louisiana-Monroe and Southern Mississippi have better defenses than Georgia, or did Franklin have better offensive personnel at Troy than he does now?
• Georgia Tech. It’s safe to say that with an total offensive turnout of 235 yards (with 73 of those on two plays), Paul Johnson’s scheme wasn’t exactly a raging success on Saturday.  But the Jackets emerged with the win – which is what Johnson was hired to do, after all.  Will the question about whether his offense can succeed in the ACC matter if it turns out that only two or three offenses in the entire conference aren’t dysfunctional?
• Florida. Yeah, in the end the Gators won comfortably.  But I doubt they won the way they expected.  Remember that whole thing about getting a running game going to take the pressure off the GPOOE™?  Reality reared its head against Miami.
  

  Florida Rushing
  	CAR	YDS	AVG	TD	LG
  T. Tebow	13	55	4.2	0	20
  P. Harvin	5	27	5.4	1	10
  C. Rainey	3	13	4.3	0	13
  J. Demps	3	-1	-0.3	0	1
  K. Moore	3	-5	-1.7	0	0
  Team	27	89	3.3	1	20

Miami is very young on defense, very fast, with a very smart defensive coordinator. The Gators are going to see a lot more of the same going forward. Except some of the SEC defenses they’ll see aren’t so young.  Does Tebow survive a year of better defensive gameplanning by Florida’s opponents?