After the final seconds tick off the clock in the Superdome on Sunday night and a new NFL champion is crowned, the April draft will become the most important and intriguing event for every pro football general manager, coach and fan.
And the most perplexing question will be this: How is Manti Te’o to be evaluated?
The last visions of him as a football player were not pretty.
He was a non-factor in Notre Dame’s 42-14 loss to Alabama in the BCS title game. Whether that was because the Crimson Tide were so dominant or because Te’o was emotionally exhausted after discovering his Internet relationship with the fictional Lennay Kekua was a hoax could not be answered by Irish coach Brian Kelly.
“Hindsight is 20/20,’’ Kelly said yesterday on a conference call. “I didn’t think going into the game that he was affected by it. But he didn’t play his best.
“Alabama had something to do with that as well, clearly. But I really don’t know. It’s a lot to weigh on the shoulders of somebody. I think we could make a leap that maybe it did, but I think Manti would know for sure.”
Every GM in the nation, starting with the Jets new GM John Idzik, who holds the No. 9 pick, will have to factor that into his assessment of the Notre Dame linebacker. If Te’o was physically overmatched against Alabama, does that call into question his ability at the next level? If he was distracted that Jan. 7 night in Miami Gardens by being at the heart of the most bizarre sports story in recent memory, how will that compare to pressure he faces on Sundays?
The NFL is not nearly as insular a world as the bucolic Notre Dame campus.
“I didn’t sense it, really,” Kelly said. “Manti’s a young man that continues to lead, and you don’t really see him, because obviously he went through a tough time during the year and we didn’t really see anything there that would’ve set off an alarm that he was under so much pressure concerning the situation. I just didn’t see it as we practiced leading into the game.”
Te’o was considered a first-round pick after his junior season, but he returned to Notre Dame with dreams of leading the Irish back to prominence. Until the Kekua hoax story broke, he would have been remembered as the most decorated linebacker in Notre Dame history, winning seven national awards and finishing second in Heisman Trophy voting.
Now, fair or not, there will be an asterisk next to his name.
“I think Manti will be remembered as a great leader of our football team, on an undefeated team at Notre Dame,” Kelly said. “He showed the way for how to be a great teammate: his work ethic, his commitment, all those things.
“And for me, he’ll be, in my eyes, one of the very great teammates that I’ve ever had in 22 years of coaching. He just, he was special to coach and he did all the things that I think great players have to do on a day-to-day basis. And we’re going to continue to hold him in that type of esteem.”