Why I Choose To Believe Manti Te'o at This Point

This story regarding Manti Te'o has caught us all off guard. His season was an inspiration about overcoming personal tragedy. Now it comes out that the whole thing was fake. Te'o claims he was fooled but Deadspin.com claims he was in on it. After a great season, it is so disappointing to see something like this come out. The question is which side do we believe? On one hand, how can you really fall in love with someone you never met? This girl had so many personal issues such as a car accident and being diagnosed with this deadly disease and yet he never went and visited her. He apparently never went to her funeral either. All those things do make anybody scratch their head. However, we are in a day and age in which online relationships do happen. The reality is that as much as we think we know Manti Te'o as a person, we don't unles we met him. The image of him being a man of faith and a great leader is something that we only read about unless we actually met him. We had this image of Tiger Woods that was shattered in a moment when he was in a car accident with a woman who was not his wife. Based on that how can I possibly believe him? The answer is one word (MOTIVE). I don't see one. To suggest that this was a publicity stunt just doesn't make sense to me. He was already regarded as the best linebacker in the country and was already on national TV every week. Therefore he didn't need help getting on TV. It would be one thing if he played for Northwestern or some FCS team, but Notre Dame is shown every week on different networks. The other part is that he lost his grandmother on the same day. That was real. So he already had a tragedy. He didn't need another one to build a story of inspiration. In spite of the red flags and how we don't really know his character, there really is not enough of a motive. He had to have known that in today's world of social media that there is no way he could of pulled this off. The risk just doesn't seem worht the reward. This seems like a very easy thing to prove if you ask me and it doesn't require private investigators. All we need is his phone record and his tweets to her. That seems like it would reslove a lot in terms of his innocence or guilt. Regardless of Te'o, Notre Dame had no role in this and they should not get penalized at all.