There's something about the Te'o story that stinks.
Television cameras focused on Notre Dame linebacker Manti Te'o during his media period at the combine: 46. In total, it was the biggest media horde in combine history. "I'd say one-third more media than Tim Tebow got,'' said combine godfather Gil Brandt.
Reporters who stayed for Georgia linebacker Alec Ogletree's complete media period at the combine: about 35.
Te'o was asked about the case of the phony girlfriend we're all familiar with. Ogletree was asked about a positive substance test that resulted in a four-game suspension last season, and about his arrest for driving under the influence earlier this month in Arizona.
What is wrong with this picture? Ogletree and Te'o are first-round inside linebacker prospects. Ogletree has two huge red flags, the second one even bigger because who takes a risk like he did, driving while impaired, on the eve of the biggest job interview of his life? Te'o has one bizarre red flag that landed him in the cross-examination chair with Katie Couric. He never met a girlfriend who turned out to be fake, and when he finally found out she was fake, he perpetuated it for a time, he says, because he was so embarrassed by it.
All I can say if Te'o drops precipitously -- and I do not believe he will; I think he goes no lower than the early 20s of the first round -- this league needs to have its collective head examined.
"I'm sitting here watching all this,'' said Nevada coach Brian Polian, the point man in the Notre Dame recruitment of Te'o, "and it's driving me out of my mind.''
Polian, son of Bill, was Notre Dame's special teams coach and the chief West Coast recruiter when Te'o was wooed. He went to Hawaii 15 times in a 13-month period, including once a week for six straight weeks during the NCAA's official contact period. He got to know Te'o the high schooler and his parents very well, obviously. "It got to the point where I'd be on the same Wednesday morning LA-to-Honolulu flight so often that the flight crew knew me and would say to me, 'Well coach, are we gonna get the guy?'
"The reason I've been so upset at how Manti has been portrayed is that I know him. He doesn't conspire to trick anyone. The people who would be so cynical, so jaded or such Notre Dame-haters simply don't know him. You have to see how he grew up. He lived in a little town on the north shore [of Oahu], where everyone knows everybody. Then he goes to a prestigious private school and, I'm not going to lie, he was sheltered. Then he goes to Notre Dame, and there aren't many places that protect and shelter their students like Notre Dame. This whole story happens, and he's guilty of one thing: trusting some sicko, because that's what he does, he trusts people. He's not jaded, he's not worldly, he's naïve. So he trusts someone who doesn't deserve to be trusted, then he's totally embarrassed by it when he finds out it's phony. Really, what is this kid's crime?
"Any NFL team that really looks into this kid is going to find out what a great person he is. I guarantee it. This thing will be a punch line in two months. He'll get to a team, players will have their fun with him for a couple of weeks, and then it'll come down to playing.''
I don't know Te'o at all. I have spent three minutes of my life with him. That happened Saturday after his press conference, which opened with Te'o looking out and saying, "Wow. That's a lot of cameras." Not just the 46 TV cameras and the 15 or 20 still photographers. But as he spoke, dozens of reporters lifted their phones up to take photos whenever he turned their way. And as he walked away from the scene and into an elevator to return him to his testing duties at the combine, I asked him a couple of questions.
"Do you think this weird girlfriend incident matters to football teams?'' I asked.
He didn't know how to answer it, and hemmed and hawed for a second, then said: "I truly believe what I did on the football field matters,'' he said. "That's what's important to being a football player."
And I asked, "What did you think of that scene in there?''
Te'o smiled. "That was a great experience,'' he said. "People were nice to me. I enjoyed it." And then he was gone.
Now there's an answer I didn't expect. Maybe, "Holy crap! That was incredible!'' But, "People were nice to me?'' I spoke to Polian after this, and it all seemed to fit -- this bizarre thing may have made him trust fewer people, but he still seems like a truster of people he's just met.
One last story: Our combine photographer Rosenberg had a short session with Te'o Sunday. He had quite a few players in his home-made studio in the Lucas Oil Stadium concourse, and he'd ask them all to pose, and then to do some action things. Rosenberg had to tell most of them to really give some effort, because it was strange to run or make sudden actions in such a confined space. When Te'o was in there, and Rosenberg asked him to run, he sprinted past Rosenberg, past the camera position, into the concourse. Sprinting. That's what he was asked to do, and so he did it.
Maybe Manti Te'o is the greatest actor in combine history. Who knows? I doubt it. I don't know how good he'll be in the NFL, but I can predict this: He's not going to be a phony.
