What have we learned?
- First and foremost, I think it is clear that Manti Te'o's draft stock has plummeted. How far it will plummet will probably depend on the news cycle and if anything else comes out about Te'o and Ronaiah Tuiasosopo in the next three months.
- It is clear that, if I were an NFL scout or draft-nik, I'd steer far clear of Manti Te'o, regardless of his talent.
- It is clear that he is not the sharpest knife in the drawer,
- has almost certainly, to some level, been taken advantage of,
- and probably to the point where he, in the wrong setting, could be compromise-able or has already been compromised.
- This could make secrets like game schemes and playbooks very difficult to keep secret around people like Te'o and anyone who might wish to compromise him.
OK... I can't say I completely buy it, but I'm willing to do so for purposes of convention.
Because even then, you have a number of questions which no one is willing to ask, much less get answers for...
- When, if ever before the Deadspin article, did Manti Te'o figure out that the dying girlfriend never existed?
- If this was at any point while the story was still going on, how and why did Te'o continue the story?
- If Ronaiah Tuiasosopo, being a failed member of a large athletic family, was scamming Te'o and a number of other athletes in this "catfishing", then who had access to Ronaiah in the days leading up to the BCS National Championship Game?
- If anyone, what did they talk about?
- A side question: Is Te'o still enrolled at Notre Dame? Could this situation place his education into question, even as he retains an agency and prepares for the NFL? (From what I've heard from people I've talked to, it sounds like he is no longer enrolled, but this is important because it would leave him subject to significant disciplinary action from the University if he committed any degree of misconduct as a Notre Dame football player.)
- Why is no one taking a hard look at the possible angle that Te'o, his story (and Heisman season) debunked, may have been ordered (by Tuiasosopo or any associates which would be the answer to #3) to take a dive in the BCS National Championship Game, a game long-hyped by BCS' ESPN as a Game of the Century, but was more than over by the end of the first quarter?
Eventually, someone is going to blow the whistle. Hard.
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