Jake

QUOTE (Soxbadger @ Jan 17, 2013 -> 05:04 PM) The part in bold should be true regardless of how this plays out. At some point Te'o knew that the media was presenting an embellished story about his relationship. And as Ive said, Im no ND fan. But its the people that are the most hated and despised, who are often the ones who need to be looked at the most objectively. Yeah, but we should add here that it would take some serious nads to try and stop that in its tracks. I'm sure he was upset (we'll assume he's not complicit in the fake girl) when someone he really liked died, but the hype was completely invented by the media. He would answer questions about it, sure, but players having a relative or person close to them die happens all the time and it was a media decision to blow it up. It has to be tough to ask to have everyone quit talking you up, especially if you believe that there is an underlying truth in the reports even if it is embellished. Once you know the con happened, do you run to the media and say "Hello, I'm a 22 year old man and had an online-only relationship with a woman who later turned out not to exist. You should all stop talking about that because it will continue to embarrass me." You might just hope the story goes away, which it was probably about to do if not for Deadspin.

No HD at college . f***s me over for sporting events, even though any non-White Sox ones have to be on low quality streams anyway. I do have MLB.tv from my laptop to TV along with Netflix, Hulu, HBO Go, MAX Go, BTN2Go

QUOTE (PlaySumFnJurny @ Jan 17, 2013 -> 04:52 PM) These statements alone seem contradictory. EditI looked at ND's 2011 schedule, and October 15, 2011 was open. That is meant to be the date that they officially started dating. That shouldn't have anything to do with football and honestly would most likely not have occurred on a gameday.

QUOTE (Soxbadger @ Jan 17, 2013 -> 04:46 PM) Jake here is the motive, this is Te'os own words: TE'o began to think of these people as his "family". The reason why its clever to get him when hes in college, is because once he is in the pro's he is going to have things like an agent, who will try and sniff s*** out like this. The end game was Te'o gets drafted, gets a huge paycheck, and maybe he sends them some money because he wants to help his "new family". Im entirely speculating, but its my theory. I can see that and it makes SOME sense. But that is a ton of effort and time put into something that had huge, huge fail potential. Not just if he finds out -- what if he becomes a 5th round draft pick? What if he f***s up a knee? What if he just decides to go off with some other girl because he isn't allowed to see his real girlfriend? Where does Tuiasasopo get the up front money as a very young man to get people to spend the time necessary to carry on this con? Even though if Te'o was conned he was a dumb ass, I think this takes more than a voice modulator to pull off. And with the time they spent on the phone, you could hardly even hold down a job or anything like that. He needed co-conspirators and a lot of money and/or benefactor. This is assuming that Tuiasasopo is clever enough to pull this off (much harder to fool Te'o into thinking his fake girlfriend exists than it would be for Te'o to pretend he has a girlfriend) and get other people to play along without leaking.

QUOTE (Buehrle>Wood @ Jan 17, 2013 -> 04:39 PM) After the SI article, it is over. There is nothing to do now but admit it, Teo. 1. I hate ND 2. I can actually see that as proof that Te'o is a moron as much as it can be proof of a con.

The interview reprinted there definitely made it seem like Te'o had actually not seen the girl in person. The interviewer suspected something along those lines, as he indicated. It seemed like his answers were intentionally vague, so as not to be lying about not having seen her in person. The weirdness about their "meeting" he describes as HER seeing HIM at a game. I bet that's what she said on Twitter. There's still the trouble of motive. Why would Tuiasasopo do this? Scam a professional player! Or, don't kill off fake girlfriend until the guy has actually been paid. Tuiasasopo is 22 years old, yes? Think about how young he'd have to have been when this started. How does he get a girl to play along with this on the phone? How does he get multiple voices to talk on the phone to impersonate a family? Someone talked to him so long that he would SLEEP ON THE PHONE! There has to be a strong motivation to do something like that, the time commitment is tremendous.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jan 17, 2013 -> 01:53 PM) I don't think I am. I think Bears fans are imagining the team has much more cap freedom than it actually has. That's going to make choosing between Melton and an O-lineman hurt. How do you think it'll go if the Bears sign the #10 O-lineman on the board for $3 million and that's the only o-line addition they make before the draft? The imaginary cap room is probably a product of the NFL being pretty good at depressing player salaries. There are a giant contracts of course, but so often you can get big names and/or big production for cheap.

I'll wait and see on this stuff. Our defense was very well schemed, but it had and has several HoF'ers on it so I doubt it can go straight to s***.

The reason this is getting attention: 1. This is totally unheard of and strange. 2. The player may have used this for some sort of gain. 3. If not, there is some heinous con artist that will be outed. That doesn't make how ND handled Lizzy any less terrible, but things of this strangeness are unprecedented.

It seems quite obvious they weren't dating until late 2011. If this is a scam that has been attempted on others, it's possible he could have encountered her before the scam was on him. I would need to look at his statement again, but I thought he left the wording just vague enough that he could have had some amount of in person contact with an impostor despite most of their interactions occurring online.

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Jan 16, 2013 -> 06:26 PM) And the whole dramatic conflict regarding her new female CIA GFF...that wasn't close to the reality of what actually happened and why it happened and the time order/sequence/chronology. Interesting one loss in the Golden Globes has taken a lot of the luster off Lincoln. Maybe that was their way of poking the Academy for not even nominating Affleck. Beasts of the Southern Wild, don't feel enough people saw that one...although you could say the same for The Artist or The Hurt Locker in years past. I really liked The Artist. Not so much The Hurt Locker, but that's not really my genre. The Artist was both up my alley and a real masterpiece. Not many filmmakers can do something so well while not taking themselves super seriously (see Lincoln for a film taking itself seriously)

QUOTE (ptatc @ Jan 15, 2013 -> 07:59 PM) This policy is based on the olympics where even certain levels of caffeine are banned as well. For some events the quick burst of a stimulant can be helpful. Certainly, it is helpful and can be more or less so depending on what you're doing and how you use it. It just bothers me that this kid (much like Marcus Stroman) will be marked as a "user" now.

I just don't see great motives out there, by anyone. The most plausible motive is that he's gay, but at this point we can only speculate as to the truthfulness of that speculation. Still leaves questions to be answered, even if you go with the sexuality cover-up theory.

Let's not forget that we had a Republican governor from 1977-2003 and the change we elected in the form of a D was more interested in selling things than running a government. I wouldn't say that these problems were completely caused by the unilateral hand of liberals.

lol @ this thread There is a remote chance that he was somehow gamed, but we would need far more info at this point to really believe that. If he's gay, he can't fix it now. ND just went balls deep to protect him, he can't go change his mind and say that those guys just lied for him.

Also, what does a fictional person gain by dying before their boyfriend becomes a professional athlete?

Also...what about these pictures? I don't know how they fit into the "Te'O was conned" narrative unless the person who decided to talk to Deadspin is the liar.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jan 16, 2013 -> 04:43 PM) Some other girl being the person Te'o reportedly met would still leave the problem of how that person matched the photos that were being used of the person, including photos being shared by the press. For now, I guess that will be the story. I wonder what happened in December that would either make him realize he was being conned or realize that the jig was up.

I like the WBC, I wish all the best players could find some way to do it. Minimal risk for a relief pitcher.

She's a beard, bro

I find it fairly unlikely that he could have gotten such a serious relationship with someone whose family he never met and whose online presence was apparently not her own. I can't fathom that anyone would have a girlfriend in college who only exists online and you've never met. A commenter wondered if this ends in him coming out of the closet. That seems plausible.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Jan 16, 2013 -> 04:12 PM) Why don't you "vote with your feet" and move to one of those glorious, poverty-free, self-sufficient conservative-run states? Also plenty of people question poverty, the efficacy of existing programs and the possible need for new or different ones all the time. What a lot of people don't do is say "welp, we tried! oh well, let's cut taxes and give up." The only correct answer to introspection is cutting taxes.

Heil Obama! Heil Biden!

Who cares? When you're poor the government takes care of you...so they're probably better off than me anyway.

QUOTE (SOXOBAMA @ Jan 16, 2013 -> 03:56 PM) Te'o is a fraud & liar. He's another reason to hate ND. I'm lost. Where does this come from? I hate ND, but I had never heard anything bad about him in particular.