Tag: Manti Te’o

A look at Notre Dame’s Heisman Trophy drought

How long until it ends?

Another Heisman weekend. Another year without a Notre Dame winner, let alone a Notre Dame finalist.

Wide receiver [autotag]Tim Brown[/autotag] was the last Notre Dame player to bring home the award 35 long years ago, yet, in spite of that drought, the Fighting Irish still remain atop the leaderboard (tied with Oklahoma, Ohio State and USC) of schools with seven Heisman winners.

[autotag]Manti Te’o[/autotag] came very close in 2012 to interrupting the hiatus, but alas, here we sit waiting for the next Irish great to step to the forefront at the Downtown Athletic Club.

In honor of this weekend’s award ceremony, let’s take a look at the last 35 years and how close the Irish have come to breaking the drought.

Notre Dame commitment named nation’s top high school linebacker

Notre Dame is getting one of the best.

We’ve known for a while that Notre Dame is getting a good one in 2023 recruiting commitment [autotag]Drayk Bowen[/autotag].  Bowen has been fun to follow since committing to Notre Dame over a year ago and playing his high school football not even an hour west of South Bend.

Often times we highlighted Bowen’s incredible performances in the backfield at Andrean (Merrillville, Ind.) High School, but he’ll be joining Notre Dame to play linebacker.  Just how good is he at that?

Bowen was named the high school recipient of the 2022 Butkus Award on Tuesday.  The award goes to the nation’s top linebacker at the high school, college, and professional levels annually.

The Butkus selection committee said of the future Domer:

“Drayk Bowen is an explosive, drive-thru striker with knockback lower-body power and outstanding block destruction. He displayed exceptional instincts hitting holes as a linebacker and running back and erases angles in the open field. He’s an exceptional leader and excels equally as well in the classroom and community. In a class filled with many exceptional linebackers, he stood out as the best of the best.”

Prince Kollie also won the high school award in 2020 before signing his national letter of intent with Notre Dame.  [autotag]Manti Te’o[/autotag] (2012), [autotag]Jaylon Smith[/autotag] (2015), and [autotag]Jeremiah Owusu-Koramoah[/autotag] (2020) all won the collegiate award while wearing blue and gold.

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7 times the Heisman Trophy went to the wrong player since 1990

Which Heisman winner was the least deserving?

It’s my favorite time of year! Head-scratching and hand-wringing over the Heisman Trophy!

What should be the most prestigious award offered to a college football player has, in my mind, been tarnished by the unwritten limitations placed on the award, evidenced in the yearly trotting out of quarterbacks and running backs as the top candidates for “best player in college football”. 

Quarterbacks ARE putting up huge numbers in explosive, pass-oriented offenses, and the players taking their handoffs are scoring the touchdowns that make fans get out of their seat. But to limit the Heisman Trophy to this glamorous subsection of the sport is not calling attention to the greatness we’re all seeing all over the field. 

This year, we’re seeing more of the same. All of the finalists are very good players and deserving of some sort of recognition. But to say four quarterbacks – USC’s Caleb Williams, TCU’s Max Duggan, Ohio State’s CJ Stroud and Georgia’s Stetson Bennett – are the four best players in college football is incorrect. Alabama’s Will Anderson, Georgia’s Jalen Carter, Michigan Olusegun Oluwatimi all don’t get invitations?

While I do believe USC’s Caleb Williams is the best player in the country this year, there have been mistakes over the years. I’ll save the “at least get the right guys as finalists” and “there should be five” discussions for another day. Here are the most glaring errors, in which a quarterback or running back was awarded the Heisman, but probably was less deserving than one of his less “glamorous” cohorts. We’ll go back all the way to 1990 (there’s a reason).

And as much as I believe Notre Dame mauler [autotag]Quenton Nelson[/autotag] was the best player in college football in 2017, I’ve excluded him here because in spite of Baker Mayfield’s struggles in the NFL, he was pretty amazing that year. In order to be included on this list, a player had to finish in the Top 10 of voting.

Notre Dame legend Manti Te’o named to Polynesian Football Hall of Fame

As first-ballot as first-ballot gets. Congrats Manti!

November 1, 2022 (Honolulu, HI) – The Polynesian Football Hall of Fame unveiled its Class of 2023 today. Three Inductees were selected from a list of eight Finalists.

The Class of 2023 is Larry Warford of Samoan Ancestry, [autotag]Manti Te’o[/autotag] of Hawaiian and Samoan Ancestry, and Harry Montague-Field of Hawaiian Ancestry.

“On behalf of the Polynesian Football Hall of Fame, we congratulate the Class of 2023,” said Jesse Sapolu, Polynesian Football Hall of Fame Chairman, Co-Founder and Inductee. “These men represent the very best of our Polynesian people and we look forward to celebrating this recognition with them and their families in January!”

Notre Dame football: Would 6-6 Irish accept bowl invitation?

Should a potential 6-6 Notre Dame team accept a bowl bid?

Notre Dame sits at 4-3 on the year with five games left to go as they continue to prepare for Syracuse this weekend.  Notre Dame will be a slight underdog against the Orange, who were handed their first loss of the year last Saturday after giving up 17 fourth-quarter points at Clemson.

If things play out according to what the oddsmakers say, would Notre Dame accept a bowl invitation?

That would mean Notre Dame falls at Syracuse, at home to Clemson, and at USC while beating Navy (Baltimore) and Boston College.

The last time Notre Dame finished 6-6 they declined a bowl invitation.  It should be noted that came at the end of the 2009 season right after Charlie Weis had been fired.

2008 also saw Notre Dame go 6-6 in the regular season as the Irish accepted an invitation to the Hawai’i Bowl where they routed the University of Hawai’i and also took advantage of their proximity to prized recruit [autotag]Manti Te’o[/autotag].

Part of me gets that with accepting a bowl bid that is more important than the destination or opponent comes extra practices ahead of the off-season.  With that said, I’m not against Notre Dame saying something like “we don’t reward 6-6 with a bowl appearance because our standards are higher than that” type of thing.

At the end of the day, however, I think the value of those practices outweighs the sting of potentially going to a postseason game with just a 6-6 record.  Here is what the national experts project for Notre Dame’s postseason this week:

Watch: Behind the scenes of Manti Te’o’s return to Notre Dame

Hopefully it’s not another 10 years until he’s back again!

It had been a long time since Notre Dame legend Manti Te’o had stepped foot on the campus he called home from 2009 through early 2013.  Too long.

So long in fact that since Te’o was last on campus he’s now gotten both engaged and married as well as become a father.

We saw Te’o deliver a speech to the fans before the game against Cal last Saturday but thanks to the Notre Dame advanced media team we now have a look at how the rest of Te’o’s visit went, including a look at the message he delivered to the team.  Check it out:

I had two favorite parts of it:

  1. Manti yelling out from hundreds of feet away to watch for the quarterback sneak
  2. Finding out exactly where he met Jon Bon Jovi

It was awesome to see an all-time great back on campus and hopefully it won’t be long until he returns again.

Related – where will Notre Dame go bowling in 2022?  

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Notre Dame beats Cal: best photos as Irish win in green

The green jerseys were popping on Saturday. Check out the best photos here

Notre Dame stopped their three-game skid with a 24-17 win over Cal on Saturday, the first win of the year and the first victory of the Marcus Freeman era.  He improves to 1-3 all-time as a head coach and Notre Dame improves to 5-0 all-time against Cal.

It wasn’t the prettiest of things but it was enough to land the Irish in the win column.  Drew Pyne overcame a slow start to be effective enough for Notre Dame win while the offensive and defensive lines both made life difficult in the second half for their Pac-12 opponent.

Before we turn the page to North Carolina who Notre Dame takes a trip to take on next week, here’s some of the best photos from the 24-17 Fighting Irish victory over Cal.

WATCH: Former Saints LB Manti Te’o receives warm welcome at Notre Dame

Former Saints linebacker Manti Te’o is at peace with himself and his NFL career. On Saturday, he returned to Notre Dame and received a hero’s welcome:

This is cool to see. Manti Te’o played his last down of football in the Superdome, finding a successful second life with the New Orleans Saints, but on Saturday he returned where he rose to prominence as a college star at Notre Dame. And he was welcomed back to campus by a throng of cheering fans.

Good for him. Te’o’s career experienced highs and lows, with the linebacker earning consensus All-American honors and becoming the face of Notre Dame football before his team suffered a crushing defeat to Alabama in the 2013 BCS National Championship Game. He was the victim of an online catfishing scheme that did a lot to tarnish his reputation, and which became the subject of a recent Netflix documentary to accurately tell the story.

After being selected in the second round of the 2013 draft by the then-San Diego Chargers, Te’o struggled to stay on the field with injuries and ended up leaving in free agency, following his old coach Mike Nolan to New Orleans. Te’o played a full 16-game season for the first time in his career in 2017, logging 10 starts, but was supplanted in the starting lineup by Demario Davis the following offseason.

He hung around with the Saints as an experienced backup for a few years and signed with the Chicago Bears in 2020 as a reserve, though he didn’t get into a game until, ironically, they visited New Orleans in the playoffs. Te’o was instrumental for the Saints in some big moments — the first that comes to mind is him and Vonn Bell stopping Washington running back Samaje Perine together on a crucial 3rd-and-1 late in their thrilling 2017 comeback win, setting up the game-tying score by New Orleans on a subsequent possession to help send the game to overtime.

Now he’s at peace and retired from pro ball, enjoying life as one of Notre Dame’s all-time fan favorites. Te’o was on hand Saturday to see the Fighting Irish go into halftime down 10-7 against California, only to rally in the second half and win the day 24-17. It was the first win of Notre Dame head coach Marcus Freeman’s tenure, and it’s fitting that Te’o had a front-row seat to witness it.

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Watch: Manti Te’o makes pregame speech to Notre Dame faithful

Tie to get fired up.

It’s hard to believe it already has been 10 years since Manti Te’o was a Heisman Trophy finalist. That means it’s been almost as long since the world learned of the embarrassing catfishing saga he found himself tied up in. However, all Notre Dame fans saw when he appeared before them and the current Irish was a program legend who would run through a brick wall for his alma mater. You couldn’t come to any other conclusion after hearing this speech, which was recorded by Tyler Horka of Blue and Gold:

Te’o’s prediction of an “all-ager rager” at Notre Dame Stadium might be the first of its kind to be on the record. Like every other Irish supporter, he knows that the team needs all the motivation it can get as it prepares to host California. If the Irish win and Te’o chooses to take credit for it, is anyone really going to complain? That’s how desperate everyone is for good news.

Contact/Follow us @IrishWireND on Twitter, and like our page on Facebook to follow ongoing coverage of Notre Dame news, notes, and opinions.

Follow Geoffrey on Twitter: @gfclark89

Notre Dame great to return to campus this weekend

Is he the best linebacker to ever play at Notre Dame?

In the long history of Notre Dame football few players have drawn as much attention as former star Fighting Irish linebacker [autotag]Manti Te’o.[/autotag]  Te’o helped guide the Irish to a 12-0 regular season in 2012 when he finished second in the Heisman Trophy voting after putting up a year that saw him record seven interceptions, 113 tackles, and 1.5 sacks.

On a star-filled defense he shined the brightest as he exceeded the lofty expectations that were put in place the second he announced his commitment to Notre Dame.

As we all know, things to a crazy turn for Te’o after it turned out that who he thought was his girlfriend didn’t actually exist and one of the strangest stories any of us will ever see wound up playing out.

Te’o will be back on campus this weekend when Notre Dame hosts Cal as the Irish look for their first win of 2022.  According to Pete Sampson of The Athletic, Te’o will walk with the team from pregame mass to the stadium.

Te’o has been on campus and in the stadium a couple of times since he last suited up for Notre Dame in that memorable 2012 season but after the recent documentary was released about the catfishing drama he was a product of, this visit will likely feel a tad different.

Check out some photos of Te’o from his outstanding Notre Dame football career below.