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Te’o Will Return in 2012

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Christmas has come early for Irish fans.

According to Lisa Horne of Fox Sports, Manti Te’o delivered the following statement during the Lott Award Ceremony:

I feel I’m not done at Notre Dame. I’ll be coming back to Notre Dame.

To say I’m excited is an understatement. Our front seven will be absolutely stacked for 2012 and I cannot wait to see Te’o lead the Irish defense on the field once again.

Guess we can put that whole Kelly “causing a divide” between Weis’ players and his own thing to rest for good.

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Man, if a couple of the young corners and one young safety can rise to the occasion this defense will be very, very good next year.

  4. Very exciting to hear! I think that if KLM comes back, along with Cwynar, Nix, Tuitt, Lynch, and the incoming Jarron Jones and Sheldon Day clearing the way for Te’o, we could see a really special front seven next year. I think a lot of it will depend on how much Ishaq Williams and Niklas and the other OLBs can improve. If we can get those 6’5 to 6’7 guys on the outside to use their wingspans to turn things back in consistently towards Te’o, it could be the best front 7 ND has seen in a long, long time. The same goes for the defense if we can get the young pups in the secondary to play well.

    I really excited to hear Te’o is coming back. He is a class act, and one of the finer people to wear the Blue and Gold that I can remember.

    • KLM will be back for sure. I think a ton, ton, ton is riding on our ability to quickly develop new DBs – corners AND safeties. The front 7 will be as good as any in the country, but if teams can pass over them at will we will be in trouble…unless the pass rush is just THAT good.

  5. This is massive. It’s massive for the team dynamic just as much as it is for the level of skill ND is able to put on the field against an opponent’s offense in 2012.

  6. Its Monday morning, I don’t want to be at work. Now I’m ready to take on the world. The sun is shinning a litte brighter. Food tastes better. I think my receeding hairline has grown back a little. Now we need some frosh corners to make Lynch type impacts next year. Our D are gonna be beasts.

  7. Great news of course. I think Eiffert will return too because he can actually use another year of development, but also because Kelly can use Floyd as a model of how to improve your overall appeal with one more year.
    On D, we will be fine but I think Diaco must re-think his approach to never play the ball in the air.
    On watching many more games lately it seems that guys trying to play the ball are having more success than not, and I never hear the commentator say-” he tried to play the ball and got burned.”

  9. I never really thought manti was leaving early. Just listening to him speak and how mature an level-headed he is…i think he realizes he’ll be just as valued in one year and his future is much better with a degree. Who knows if hell EVER play pro football? He may decide he needs to be a full time mormon missionary. This is great news to have it settled, though

  10. Great news for the team and all of us as fans. But better news for Manti. Not only will it enhance his already formidable skills, it tells me that he chose ND for all the right reasons. Trust me, I greatly look forward to another year of watching him do his work. But as much as we love the football, it should be about more than the football. Money comes and goes. Memories of battles fought & those with whom you’ve fought can’t be purchased. He will value this decision long after his football career is over. Perge’ Manti.

  11. This is great news, as much for the reasons he gave as for the decision itself. The statement about how could he be happy living in a mansion knowing he passed up on the memories of a lifetime shows a maturity that I know I didn’t have at that age (or perhpaps even now).

    This could – and I am speculating here – impact recruiting. This is a concrete message to recruits that if a super-start passes up millions of dollars in hand in exchange for the memories he will have his senior year, in exchange for the chance to walk onto the field and greet his parents on senior day, even if he has to walk in on crutches, then maybe this school is really different than most. The the kind of recruit who is leaning toward ND for other than the football reasons, this is the kind of intangible that can tip the scale.

    • If I were an opposing coach competing for a recruit I could easily spin this into a negative.

      “See, even their best player and a guy who is being projected to be a top 15 pick in the draft is really just overrated. That’s all ND is. Im sure when he did his draft evaluation, it came back proving that he wasn’t really looked well on by scouts and that his hype was just based on where he was, not his talent. All ND has is unskilled , overhyped, past glory. You dont want to go there.”

  12. Nd athletics just shared a youtube link, which I also shared, on fb with Teo and Kelly talking about why he is coming back. Class act is all I can say.

  13. On an unrelated note, it is interesting that the two highly touted players (Clausen, Tate) while Weis was at the helm ended up leaving early but two of three (Te’o and Floyd, Rudolph) have stuck around while Kelly is there. I don’t know if you can attribute that to a coach or not, but it is definitely something to ponder.

    Disclaimer: This is not way meant to be a backhanded swipe at Weis. I have nothing but respect for the guy, think that he gave us all he had, and it, unfortunately, didn’t work out.

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