Wait - is it possible Tuiasosopo faked his illness and death? And that's the part that Manti was duped on? Then it really is the "love of his life" becoming ill and dying. And it could make sense then that he wouldn't visit him, lest the real nature of the relationship possibly be exposed.

The answer comes from how Teo was behaving with reporters. Multiple reporters have talked about Teo was pushing the story to them before and after her fake death. He was even telling them not to visit her or attempt to contact the family out of respect. You know, the same family he was claiming to have talked to himself.

I think he thought it would be a cool little story around the Michigan and Michigan State game but would go away as Notre Dame became less of a national story. Unfortunately for him, Notre Dame kept winning and Notre Dame became the story of the year in college football.

Just think about how close he was to getting away with this. She fake died in September. The story broke in January.

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

Most plausible explanation yet.

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Sex isn't dirty, sex isn't a crime. It's a loving act between two or more consenting adults.

-Hank Kingsley

Maybe when he tried to arrange to go to the funeral or send flowers or whatever, he was getting the run around.

So he knew something was a miss and didnt want anyone else exposing it before he found out.

He made up a person and then that person's death because he wanted a "cool little story" around the rivalry games?

That is "plausible"?


Is this Earth?

...and maybe he has a unicorn he rides to the moon.

He was intentionally obstructing reporters into going deeper on the story and instead he was providing them what to say and how to act.

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

No, he didn't make up the story around the rivalry game. He did it to cover his relationship.

He had to get rid of her somehow and it was literally the perfect time to do it.

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

What is wrong with you?

Why do you find your crazy story to be logical? Its not.



Yeah, that's what I just said. Thank you for repeating it.

And you think what you are guessing is plausible?

Your version is as fucked up as any other theory Ive heard. Except for some reason, you are absolutely sure you know what happened.

My crazy story is much more consistent both logically and factually than the current explanation of Teo or your explanation that he found out in December, kept it going without really doing anything, and then thought she was alive until last week.
The problem is that he didn't dive deeper into the story. Remember, by his own admission, he didn't know she was truly fake until the Deadspin story came out. You are just throwing things at the wall if you now are saying he may have been investigating things in September.

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

So, just to be clear

Rick is saying:

He made up a fake relationship (no reason provided. guessing to cover he's gay)

Had numerous hour long conversations on the phone with a fake person to cover up the fact that he's gay.

Then his grandma was sick and he decided to call MORE attention to this fake relationship by faking a death and doing interviews about it.

Finally, he thought the story would go away because Notre Dame is such a small out of the spotlight school and football program.



And this is being packaged as "logical"


on the other hand, I have provided a theory that has waaaaaay less holes than that, and Rick wants to dismiss it.

I dont know what happened. I think my version is more likely than Ricks, but I wont dismiss what Rick is saying out of hand, because Im aware of the fact that I dont KNOW


Is it perhaps that Rick hates Notre Dame so much that he wants the story to be as bad as possible and thats clouding his logic?

No, its not.

Your version is crazy and requires several leaps in logic and pretending things didnt happen (phone calls)


My version is about an embarrassed college kid lying to cover embarrassment and getting out of hand


Your version requires Te'o to be a sociopath who tactfully planned out rouse to cover being gay, including hours of fake phone calls, ignoring the fact that his friend has all but admitted to doing it, and includes the justification "it was a cool little story around the michigan game"

"Youre just throwing things against the wall"
-The guy who said a person faked a death because it would be "a cool little story"

Imaginary reading on your part. Where did I say/quote anything about Te'o making someone up?

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Sex isn't dirty, sex isn't a crime. It's a loving act between two or more consenting adults.

-Hank Kingsley

Rick's story involved making up a person

You called Rick's version plausible.


But Im done aruging about this.

If He's gay and went to insane lengths to cover it. Thats fine.


This is too much energy to waste, even for this place

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This is my signature...

This is not totally accurate.

Here is my scenario which is more plausible than Teo's story or your story.

Teo, a Mormon football player at a Catholic university develops a friendship with Roniah. He is talking to him all the time, which explains the phone records. Over a period of time, in order to keep things quiet and have the fewest amount of questions possible a story is concocted that he has a girlfriend in California. Eventually, as the cover continues, people start to question why she is never seen at games, or why he's not seeing her more often, so he comes up with a story about a car crash. I agree this is somewhat absurd, but so is the Teo explanation. The car crash story only continues to fuel the need to create more lies to the point where both Teo and Roniah begin looking for a way out of it. Teo cannot break up with a girl in the hospital without people going crazy. The death of Teo's grandmother provides that cover to kill off his girlfriend as Teo can act emotional about a real death while rolling in the fake death. This is why at the time of the death he is directing reporters to not speak to anyone with her family. This plan would have worked out alright, but Notre Dame and Teo became national stories because of the season they had. It kept on getting bigger. Remember, in every other year, Notre Dame has been mostly irrelevant by midseason. This is where I have changed my thinking. I don't think Teo did it to get a Heisman trophy push(though he clearly took advantage of it once the ball started rolling on that). I think he did it to close that chapter down. The Heisman stuff is just a bonus, and he uses it to his advantage. This is why he chose to have the Heisman trophy be the first time he had any doubt she was really dead(this is his story, that he didn't know if she was dead or alive). He then tells Notre Dame eventually because by the end of December he knows this is going to come out, but he asks them to wait until after the title game. After the title game, he hires an agent who pays off Roniah to not talk. Deadspin breaks the story, Teo cuts off almost all ties with ND, and everything since has been handled by a PR firm.

This is much more plausible than Teo having a 3 year relationship where he only saw 2 pictures, never saw a video, never met this person, never even attempted to visit them, never attempted to send a birthday card to the hospital and never sent flowers to the funeral home while telling reporters he did and that they shouldn't try and talk to anyone associated with it. Keep in mind there is video of him hugging Roniah, Teo still continues to lie about it even after he is told about it killing all reason to believe he is being 100% truthful, the major contradictions he told Couric that she called him out on(the layover plane ride story makes no sense even according to Teo).

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

Cool

We'll see eventually hopefully


Today's news is that the voice on the calls was NOT a man. It was Roniah's cousin

There is no way you could know whether he TRIED to visit her or send cards or flowers.

So what was the point of all of this, then? If everything happened according to your theory, what were multiple people trying to accomplish with this "hoax"? If it were just the other guy involved, maybe you could say he was in love with Te'o or something. But if this woman was doing the voice and staying on the phone for hours while her cousin was texting and emailing him all for no apparent reason, it seems. There has to have been an end game here.

Or. Maybe there was no hoax.

Neither of those theories are any more "crazy" than the other because this entire thing makes no sense. No way anyone can be confident about much at this point...

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No, I can, because she didn't exist! He would have been told that it was undeliverable to the hospital.

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I dont know

Why does anyone do it to anyone online? I mean it happens all the time.

I did read that Roniah was obsessed with Te'o but who knows whats legit anymore


I agree, we shouldnt dismiss anything. I guess that's why I take issue with Rick thinking his version is more logical. Its not. None of this is in the same area code as logical.

In my version, Te'o would have to be ultra dumb and naive almost beyond belief

In Rick's verison, Te'o would have to come up with an extremely overly detailed account of how his relationship ended, almost beyond belief.

If people said "Where is she?" Teo could have said "I dumped that bitch" or anything like that and that would have been the end of it. The levels he went to cover being gay dont make sense. He's the dumbest cover upper of all time if that's the case.


I dont know what happened.

Whoever he was talking to when the fake person was in the hospital could have easily said "dont send me flowers"

That would be him trying and failing to send flowers.

Huh? It's the same story that everyone else already believed. Roniah made up the exact same story according to Teo and he believed it and so did everyone else. The only thing different with me is that Teo knew it wasn't true when he was telling everyone about it. It wasn't beyond belief because everyone believed it!
Obviously, a sane thinking person would not have done that. However, we are instead to believe that Teo was in love with a person who he had seen a total of 2 pictures for. In my opinion, believing that is true is the most absurd thing about this.

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

Apparently Rick has never been in online love

Here is the problem though. She specifically said to send her flowers for the funeral instead of going to play, and he didn't because the funeral didn't exist.

You can take any one piece of inconsistency and discard it but when you add all of them up and look at it there is virtually no chance Teo is telling the truth right now.

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

Rick and RPB, wouldn't both of your stories flow better if a) Teo and Tuiasosopo carried on a legit gay online/phone relationship the entire time, and then b) Tuiasosopo faked his illness and death, duping Teo? That scenario clears up a whole lot of holes.

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This is my signature...

My inbox says otherwise.

Wait, what?

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Sex isn't dirty, sex isn't a crime. It's a loving act between two or more consenting adults.

-Hank Kingsley

I think a is likely. B is an interesting thing I had not considered. I still think it is more likely that they worked together on it.

_________________
You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!