Jake

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.

traitorrrrrrrr

QUOTE (Y2HH @ Jan 16, 2013 -> 10:12 AM) The most important thing to look for in regards to Honey is that it's made in the USA, different countries have different rules as to what constitutes "honey", the US's is the most restrictive, not to mention the safest. Raw honey shouldn't be much more expensive than any other honey, the problem is going to a place that doesn't purposefully overprice it. There are a lot of local honey producers, so you can find it. Interesting that we have those rules, we're usually really lax. I think back to champagne, which only in 2006 did the USA finally protect that term to only apply to the French-made ones. Of course, they let all domestic "champagne" producers be grandfathered in.

QUOTE (Eminor3rd @ Jan 16, 2013 -> 10:13 AM) Yeah, again, these always tend to be conservative on an individual player level, but accurate league-wide. So the right way to look at these is the mean of a range of outcomes, many of them very extreme -- and when you have older guys, there's a better chance they bust than when they are younger, so I think guys like Dunn/PK are dragged down by the very real possibility that they just die completely. Of course, Dunn is haunted more by his 2011, PK by his age. Same thing with Peavy, really. He's good but there's still a very real chance he gets hurt and gives us well below average production. GOD BLESS IT!

Seems like ZiPs ends up making every player closer to league average than an average fan would expect.

I don't know. I find it unlikely that we don't have a 30 HR hitter. I'd say it's as likely that we have 5 (PK, Dunn, Viciedo, Rios, Flowers?) as us having 0. Both being not very likely. I'd also be surprised if Sale with a mid 3 ERA is our only starter under 4. Peavy would be the obvious choice to be under 4, but it could be anyone. If we only get 29/77 from Dunn, 26/80 from PK, 18/70 from Rios...we're not looking good. Our success really does largely hinge on those guys though. Other than Rios, it wouldn't be unreasonable to expect better years from PK and Dunn, especially Dunn. Dayan should be better as well. 3B production will be up. They seem a bit optimistic about our bullpen, but they aren't weighted very heavily in an overall calculation anyway.