SOUTH BEND, Indiana -- There were multiple cameras in Manti Te'o's face from the moment he sat down for Monday's interviews until 45 minutes later, when it was time for a team meeting.
This, of course, was nothing new for the award-winning, Notre Dame senior linebacker.
What was relatively new was what he experienced last week as he hunkered down in his dorm room to study for his final examinations or rejoined his teammates to prepare for Alabama.
Peace, quiet, normalcy -- everything that is taken away when you go on the kind of whirlwind tour Te'o experienced during the first week of December.
Shortly after he learned Notre Dame would face Alabama in the BCS National Championship game, Te'o was everywhere but South Bend. He collected a whopping six national awards -- the Lott Trophy, Nagurski Trophy, Butkus Award, Lombardi Award, Bednarik Award, Maxwell Award and Walter Camp Player of the Year -- and he made a point to be at all of the respective ceremonies, including the ones in which he came up short of winning.
"It was, for me, an amazing thing to see this young man go from city to city and treat each one of those awards as they were, individually," Notre Dame coach Brian Kelly said today. "I also saw him probably as tired as I've ever seen him before. That takes a lot of your energy, a lot of your time.
"He didn't blow off anything, he didn't not show up for a signing, he didn't blow off dinner. He was at everything. Then to come back and just be a college guy this week, that's what makes that young man special."
Though he certainly would have loved to win the Heisman trophy, Te'o was spared the weeklong "Heisman tour" that has been cited as a reason for why some previous winners have performed poorly in their respective bowl games.
Until Monday, Te'o had gone nine full days without having to give an interview.
"It was great," Te'o said with a broad smile splashed across his face. "It was amazing."
Te'o said he was "slowly still catching up" to everything he missed while he was jet-setting.
"I wake up at 3 in the morning, 4 in the morning just wide awake," Te'o said. "I'm like, 'OK, am I in California, am I in Houston, South Bend or Florida?'
"I just really wanted to be around my guys, be around my team. I really wanted to be around my classmates. Now that my classmates are gone, I just want to be around the team."
Te'o made some time to study up on Alabama while he studied for finals.
"They do what they do very well," Te'o said. "They have a strong running game. They have a quarterback who is very confident in his arm strength and very confident in his accuracy."
Te'o has been the heart and soul of a Notre Dame defense that rivals, barely trails or surpasses Alabama in most national categories. He leads the Fighting Irish in tackles (103) and interceptions (seven).
It's all come during a record-setting senior season that wouldn't have happened if he opted to leave early for the NFL.
"What we wanted him to do was impact others; accountability, if you will, to all players on the team at the highest level," Kelly said. "Where his growth came from was that he started to hold others the same level that he held himself. I think that's where it starts to spread.
"There's no question in my mind that there were other players that took hold of acountability for others. That's why we have such a dynamic group of leaders with this team."
It's why Te'o has no problem speaking for the team when he's asked about the final game of his Notre Dame career.
"We're not done yet," Te'o said. "We're 12-0. That's great, it's a great accomplishment, but 12-0 doesn't mean anything if you lose the last one."
