Manti Te'o's dead girlfrined story a hoax??? - Page 3

TMZ (LOL) tied Ronaiah Tuiasosopo to another Catfish hoax - posing as the big sister of the chick that was supposed to be Teo's girlfriend.

http://www.tmz.com/2013/01/17/manti-teo-ronaiah-tuiasosopo-scandal-hoax-notre-dame-photo-girlfriend/

There was a little bit about that in the original Deadspin article as well.

 

Actually, it probably will.  Teams do an incredible amount research on the guys that they are looking to spend tens of millions of dollars on, and if this plays out as I think it will, no one is going to take a risk on him.  He'll definitely drop out of the first round.

I am hooked on this story, like when the Tiger story first broke. The news feed is like a minute by minute account of this whole thing.

I will start taking bets on when Ta'o goes on Oprah.

I think it was 1 of 2 things...

 

1. He was the victim and found out but kept the story going in hopes he didn't look like a fool

 

2. He was just flat out in on it the whole time

 

However I think he's in a pretty good spot if he keeps his mouth shut and sticks to his story. The media keeps giving out different stories and a new twist comes out everyday so no one knows the truth. If he just sticks with his story I don't know if the truth will ever get beyond a he said, they said situation which would be good for him. Plus it helps that deadspin broke the news because while I love deadspin they are all about page hits and often write bad stuff followed by an "update" or "retract" just to get those page hits. I think the telling sign of if he is in on it will be where he goes in the draft if falls a long way I think teams that investigated found he was in on it. If he still gets picked in round 1 or 2 they probably didn't turn up anything more than the media but maybe some team might just be that desperate for a MLB.

This is pretty much my feeling on it (although I may have been swayed by listening to mad dog russo on the way home last night.)

Assume for a moment that he was not in on it.  That he genuinely thought he was in a relationship with this girl who he never met in person.  To me, its weird, but it happens.  I guess there is some show about it on MTV.  

 

So take a guy who thinks he is in one of these relationships, and put him in the spotlight.  21 years old.  Star linebacker at Notre Dame.  Probably has teammates ribbing him and girls throwing themselves at him.  The media (school papers, local papers, national media, everyone) starts asking him about his girlfriend.  He's seen Napolean Dynamite and he doesn't want to look like Kip and say he's been chatting with babes online because he'll be ridiculed.  So he embellishes the relationship.  Maybe he even embellishes it because the media loves the story.  That's pretty much what his teammates said. 

 

In my mind, that's understandable and not a big deal.  I would even give him a pass for not coming clean after he found out, and responding to questions about her, because the alternative would be to blow this thing open as his team is preparing for the national championship.

 

 

I'm not saying this is what happened.  I think there are only a handful of people in the world who know what happened. I just don't think that's so outlandish that it should be dismissed, that's all.  It could all make sense.  

 

Its entirely possible that I missed it, but I haven't seen a quote from him saying that he talked to her on the phone every night.  The deadspin article quotes an ESPN article that does not quote Te'o on that.  That's hearsay, which would be inadmissible in a court of law because its unreliable.  

 

I agree that if he said that he talked to her on the phone every night, that would be significant.  But I haven't seen that.  I think he actually said that he talked to her on the phone and that he talked to her every night.  But you can't just put those together and say that he claimed to talk to her on the phone every night.  That's what the reporters are doing.

 

 

If we're trying to show that the guy lied, you've got to find something he said that isn't true.  You can't just point to what journalists reported and argue that its not true.  

 

 

We need a poll!

I think it can be a lot more complicated. He could have been chatting with a "girl" remotely thinking they were going to meet. Then she dies. He embellishes it a bit. And then he finds out that she is fake. And now he is stuck with what to do. He goes to ND and they tell him to keep it quiet.  In the end I am sure no one is going to come out smelling like roses. I am not sure if any crimes have been committed. 

 

What was he saying?

He ended the day interviewing a Notre Dame alum (forgot the name but his kid plays there now) - basically what he got out of it was that he is a good, shy kid and the speculation that Teo was gay or concocted this story himself to get Heisman votes was absurd.

 

He basically felt that the kid was scammed and was just didnt want to bring any of this up right before the game. A lot of people that meet on the internet will tell others that they met in person so no one thinks that they are weird. It is just a bit harder to hide stuff when you are high profile.

 

The real question is who tipped off deadspin - I would speculate that it was one of the guys expected to be drafted right behind Teo.

So after reading everything that we know to this point I have a version of the story I believe now.

Teo started off believing this was real. Ronny Tuiasosopo was the person who set him up. He fell for it. He later would embellish it because it was getting so much coverage, it snowballed out of control and became much larger than he expected. He found out in early December it was a hoax, but it was too big of a story and he was worried he would look like a fool so he kept it to himself. I think after Christmas he was hearing rumors that the people who fooled him were not keeping their mouths shut and eventually this was going to get out. He told ND. This was weighing on him and he played the game like he was a freshman in his first game.

This week he was planning to tell the story, but Deadspin beat him to it. He was then going to talk to ESPN, probably apologize for December and admit he was duped. Then Deadspin threw the curveball of Tuiasosopo. Tuiasosopo in Hawaii is like a Kennedy in Massachusetts, they are extremely well known and I think this period of stalling on Teo's part is to let the Tuiasosopo's get their house in order before Teo blows the story up even further.

I predict next week Teo will speak say he was duped, then lied, and never knew it was his friend setting him up. Tuiasosopo's likely are scrambling trying to figure out how to handle Ronny.

I want to add, that the part I am still struggling with is why his parents would say that Teo and this girl met. Maybe they were told by Teo that he had met her to perpetuate the myth. This is still unclear to me.

That's definitely all entirely possible, and the bold part's a good point.

If I had to guess, this would be what I think is the right story, with the only alteration being I have a suspicion that he knew (or at least thought, or the thought entered his mind) before December. I mean, it had to, right? At least some sort of suspicion? He's even said that every time he tried to get her to meet him in person "she" made up a reason not to.

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Also, I still have no idea what to think of the Arizona Cardinals' FB who said that she was real and that he met her. Is he just trolling or something? Even Te'o has admitted that she wasn't real. Then again, who was it on the phone in December? Tuiasosopo would have no real reason that I can think of to call Te'o again.

I agree that this is the most likely situation. If it's right, what does that mean? I wouldn't really blame him for not coming out with it.

To me, if he thought it was real when she died, I wouldn't really blame him. If he knew before then, it's a different story.

My guess is that the December call was made by the girl who was part of the prank. I think her conscious got the best of her and she phoned him to tell him it was a prank.

I think the Cardinal FB was trying to help Tuiasosopo and/or Teo by keeping the story going. He may have known the whole thing and then tried to protect Tuiasosopo. It failed and we will likely not hear from him again.

Maybe the Cardinals guy was also duped earlier, but never figured it out?

 

And now some girl claims that Tuiasosopo spilled his guts to her and said Te'o knew nothing.

 

 

 

http://espn.go.com/college-football/story/_/id/8857057/friend-says-ronaiah-tuiasosopo-confessed-manti-teo-girlfriend-hoax

OK so he did say after her accident he talked to her nightly, for hours, falling asleep and all that.  That has to be a lie.  

 

The rest of the interview makes it seem like he was often calling and talking to the family about her.  She would write him letters and her brother would read them to him.  And he did not claim in the interview to have met her.  

 

 

SI: How did you meet her?

TE'O: We met just, ummmm, just she knew my cousin. And kind of saw me there so. Just kind of regular.

very strnge

 

Read More: http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/college-football/news/20130117/manti-teo-girlfriend-hoax-quotes/#ixzz2IMvJRjvP

 

Oh yes it will. At least on where he will be drafted.

 

Before the BCS game, he was considered a mid-first round pick, somewhere in the teens. His horrible showing there will easily drop him out of the first round. Now this concocted dead girlfriend story will have a lot of teams passing on him. Goes to character, let's face it, intelligence. Two traits highly valued by NFL teams.

 

I can see him dropping to the third round where some team will consider him a 'value' pick. So that stunt cost him millions of contract dollars.

 

Now, once drafted, will this have an effect on his career? On this I agree with billchao. There's nothing to indicate this story will impact how he plays at that level - what is more alarming was how he disappeared in the BCS title game.