EAST LANSING, Mich. — With bloodshot eyes and tears on his cheeks, Notre Dame linebacker Manti Te’o stood in front of the small section of jubilant Notre Dame fans and blew kisses to them. Then he turned, gazed up into the Michigan night, pounded his chest and pointed skyward.
The most emotionally draining week in his life was over. Te’o and his Notre Dame family were still strong.
Te’o led a dominating Notre Dame defense that held 10th-ranked Michigan State out of the red zone and the end zone, in a 20-3 romp that coach Brian Kelly dubbed a signature win. It surely was an emotional one.
In one heartbreaking week, Te’o lost his grandmother to cancer and his girlfriend to leukemia. With a heavy heart and a mind that he acknowledged was not always on the game, Te’o had a game-high 12 tackles, one tackle for loss and ended the Spartan’s last realistic chance for a comeback with a fumble recovery.
“I had my family around me,’’ Te’o said. “I had my football family around me, my girlfriend’s family around me and at the end of the day families are forever. I’m going to see them again, and it’s going to be a very happy day when I do.’’
Te’o, a Mormon, is a young man of great faith and tremendous athletic ability. The Spartans (2-1) kept throwing over the middle, hoping their skill players could break a tackle and bust a big play. But that is where Te’o patrols. He might be the surest tackler in college football and last night his defensive teammates honored him with their play.
“All those kids in there were pulling for Manti and Manti raised his level, too,’’ Kelly said. “Given all the distractions and tragedy that he had to deal with, he went and played really good football.’’
The entire Notre Dame defense was outstanding. It held Michigan State’s former Heisman Trophy candidate Le’Veon Bell to just 77 yards on 19 carries. Two weeks ago, Bell burst on the scene with a 210-yard performance against a physical Boise State defense.
With Bell silenced, the Spartans tried to do more through the air. But with receivers dropping passes and the Irish getting pressure on Andrew Maxwell, Michigan State’s offense was a ghost.
The Irish are 3-0 for the first time since 2002, when they finished 10-3. This was there first road, night upset of a Top 1o-ranked foe since 1983 when they won at South Carolina. Those are merely footnotes. This game, this night, belonged to Te’o.
If former Notre Dame walk-on Rudy Ruettiger can have a movie of his experience made, Manti Te’o deserves a miniseries.
His maternal grandmother, Annette Santiago, with whom Te’o was very close, died of cancer earlier this week. His girlfriend, Lennay Kekua, lost a lengthy battle with leukemia.
He’s so strong for everybody that when he was in a [bad] time everybody wanted to help him out,’’ Kelly said. “I’ve never seen that kind of dynamic among a team and a group of players. It’s a pretty close locker room.’’
The Irish jumped out to a 14-0 lead that could have been larger had first-year quarterback Everett Golson (14-of-32 for 178 yards with one touchdown and no picks) hit a couple of deep throws. Nevertheless, Golson threw a breathtaking 36-yard touchdown pass to John Goodman when he rolled right, gave ground and threw off his back foot from his 40 across the field.
He then scrambled for a six-yard score that was set up by a George Atkinson III 32-yard cutback run. The Spartans got a 50-yard field goal from Dan Conroy and nothing else.
Te’o stood tall when he faced reporters, but the drain of the week was on his face.
“[Football] is a great escape,’’ he said. “I’ll be honest, throughout the game you still think about it. But football allows me to be in a little realm, be in a little world where I know that I can just honor them by the way I play and honor my family by the way I play.’’