175 replies to this topic

[You Play to Win the Game]

Schlereth in for Golic on ESPNEWS this morning... sporting his O's hat. Hells yeah. I love that he's gone all out O's since we signed his son. Tweeting a few different times that he plans to be at Camden Yards a lot this year, etc.

[CrimsonTribe]

2009: Urban Meyer fake heart attack
2011: Honey Badger fake weed
2012: Manti Te'o fake girlfriend

I wonder how many other time bombs Nick Saban has out there just waiting to go off. All part of the Process.

[Zwolfe0]

Props to Deadspin on nailing this story. If I'm Notre Dame I would be asking for my money back on the PI's that investigated the case. For awhile now I've been going to Deadspin more and more for realistic sports coverage. It does a really good job of providing timelines and sources to gain credibility (see its Javon Belcher coverage). ESPN is no longer bearable and I'm not sure what it actually contributes anymore to sports. On October 12th Deadspin released an article about his bogus Heisman campaign that was created by the homer press at the South Bend Tribune. ESPN, SI, etc. grabbed the feel good story and ran with it and provided the platform for the story about the naive star linebacker, and his inspirational girlfriend, who appeared to have a relationship that would rival two 14 year olds before Wi-Fi and cellphones were common.

I also thought the news conference was really pathetic, and strategically planned, to happen before any members of the media outside of South Bend could get there. Judging by the 3 or 4 calls from the Chicago media it could have gotten really ugly if they had time to mobilize.

I don't think Notre Dame is out of the woods yet. If any kind of money was being raised on "her" behalf through the Te'o family, and or Notre Dame football, wouldn't this bring sanctions and jail time on all the guilty parties?

http://deadspin.com/... ... -manti-teo

[DuffMan]

Crazy story, deadspin did a fantastic job with this article.

[SammyBirdland]

I bet there's some giggling going on at Twitter headquarters right now. They're (unofficially) able to compare the IP addresses that Te'o's posts came from to the IP addresses that his girlfriend's tweets came from. I bet there's more than a little overlap.

[SammyBirdland]

Found this on the net:

[bnickle]

The interesting thing I heard is that ESPN had been sitting on the story for 10 days. Yet, apparently they still decided to run a story on Te'o and the "girlfriend"during the BCS pregame show. I think I heard that right. I didn't watch the pregame show and I'm just trying to gather info from different places. If this is true it's dispicable on ESPN's part. It's bad enough to sit on the story but to run a piece on something you knew was made up is unacceptable.

[Zwolfe0]

The interesting thing I heard is that ESPN had been sitting on the story for 10 days. Yet, apparently they still decided to run a story on Te'o and the "girlfriend"during the BCS pregame show. I think I heard that right. I didn't watch the pregame show and I'm just trying to gather info from different places. If this is true it's dispicable on ESPN's part. It's bad enough to sit on the story but to run a piece on something you knew was made up is unacceptable.

I heard that as well and there is no way ESPN is blowing the whistle on this. ESPN is as much to blame for this as Te'o, Notre Dame, etc. Don't you find it kind of crazy that ESPN would let this guy talk at length about his girlfriend, and her situation, but raise no questions when he would refuse to release a photo of her? Also, ESPN has this so far removed from the headlines on it's site it's ridiculous.

Tony Kornheiser is killing him and Notre Dame right on his radio show.

[SammyBirdland]

https://twitter.com/... ... 8744475648

[Chris B]

Too soon, Sammy. TOO SOON!

[SammyBirdland]

Got this one from Carne Cabeza

[BSLChrisStoner]

Pete Thamel, SI was just on the Dan Patrick Show. Thamel completely believes that Teo had no knowledge, and was completely duped as of the time of his story, which was after the Michigan State game.

[SportsGuy]

Pete Thamel, SI was just on the Dan Patrick Show. Thamel completely believes that Teo had no knowledge, and was completely duped as of the time of his story, which was after the Michigan State game.

Im not sure if he had knowledge of it or not...but he certainly acted like he had met her, spent time with her, etc...He lied one way or another in all of this.

As Greenberg discussed this morning, I am very surprised that no reporter figured this story out a while ago.

BTW, different people this morning saying it won't effect his draft status. I find that hard to believe though.

[BSLChrisStoner]

Im not sure if he had knowledge of it or not...but he certainly acted like he had met her, spent time with her, etc...He lied one way or another in all of this.As Greenberg discussed this morning, I am very surprised that no reporter figured this story out a while ago.BTW, different people this morning saying it won't effect his draft status. I find that hard to believe though.

Teo apparently doing an interview today with Jeremy Schaap. It won't go well for Teo, too many things he won't be able to answer.

Billick was one of those who said it would not impact his draft status. I love Billick, but disagree completely.

[Oriole85]

Unless more comes out, Teo will still get picked fairly high. As some have said this will hurt him in his draft status, but guys who have done far worse have gotten picked. If it was not a hoax on Teo, it was an unusual and extraordinary cry for limelight and attention.
Not sure the University did anything wrong though.

I agree with this assessment completely. Unless there's something criminal here... it comes down to a)does he fill a weakness we have? b) does he improve our team c)can he help the team win and MORE. Character is expendable in the name of talent. Teams need to win, it's a business. It's not like there's a million MLBs of Teo's capability. If this were the typical job I'd agree he really screwed himself over. But it's not, there's a limited amount of players of his talent.

Do I think some teams will stay away from him, sure. But is anyone going to cancel their season tickets if their team drafts him? At the end of the day, this is humilating for him, but if he helps lead a team to a Super Bowl, will anyone say "not worth it." He'll be the one with the last laugh at that point.

In terms of the university, not doing anything wrong -- legally speaking, I think you're right. But I do think they were trying to protect him and hoping it would never come out. Swarbrick is no idiot, I have a hard time believing he believes that.

[BSLChrisStoner]

Teo apparently doing an interview today with Jeremy Schaap. It won't go well for Teo, too many things he won't be able to answer.

That interview now cancelled.

[SportsGuy]

Teo apparently doing an interview today with Jeremy Schaap. It won't go well for Teo, too many things he won't be able to answer.

Billick was one of those who said it would not impact his draft status. I love Billick, but disagree completely.

Mortenson said it too..Gotta think he talked to a few people as well.

Still don't buy it. They care a lot about character and this looks really bad if he had knowledge of it.

[Big Mac]

The fact that he is not a very good football player is going to hurt his draft status a lot more than this issue.

Absolutely should not be a first round pick.

[BSLChrisStoner]

I agree with this assessment completely. Unless there's something criminal here... it comes down to a)does he fill a weakness we have? b) does he improve our team c)can he help the team win and MORE. Character is expendable in the name of talent. Teams need to win, it's a business. It's not like there's a million MLBs of Teo's capability. If this were the typical job I'd agree he really screwed himself over. But it's not, there's a limited amount of players of his talent.

Do I think some teams will stay away from him, sure. But is anyone going to cancel their season tickets if their team drafts him? At the end of the day, this is humilating for him, but if he helps lead a team to a Super Bowl, will anyone say "not worth it." He'll be the one with the last laugh at that point.

In terms of the university, not doing anything wrong -- legally speaking, I think you're right. But I do think they were trying to protect him and hoping it would never come out. Swarbrick is no idiot, I have a hard time believing he believes that.

If he was part of developing this story, that speaks to some significant psychological issues. Issues deep enough to carve into his physical talents.

If he was fully duped (which does not seem plausible), that points to someone so naive, and simplistic... that I think he would also be impacted on the field.

Kiper had him going 8th overall yesterday before this came out. I'll be very surprised if he is drafted in the 1st round.

[bnickle]

Pure speculation on my part but my guess is he may have been duped originally. However, by the time Sept came around he certainly knew what was going on. At some point, he decided to scheme and lie to cover up the embarassment. I could see that being the case but man, you have to know that you're eventually going to get caught.

If it's something else, something bigger or deeper it's going to come out. I mean listen, dude is the big man on campus at ND. My guess is if there is any truth to the rumors of him being gay, that will come out. People around ND are going to know whether he is into dudes or chicks. If this was all a lie from the very beginning that also will come out.


As far as his draft stock, as of this moment I don't think it hurts it very much, but we are at the tip of the iceberg with this thing. It depends on how shady he ends up looking in all of this that will determine how much more his draft stock drops.