BYU recruit Manti Te'o continues to get reviews

One of BYU’s top recruits continues to get rock star treatment.

That’s the subject of a feature story on Manti Te’o, a highly recruited linebacker out of Honolulu as featured in the Honolulu Advertiser today.

You can read the story at HonoluluAdvertiser.com.

Here is an excerpt from the story…

The La’ie family’s mailbox, as well as Punahou’s athletic department’s, is deluged with recruiting letters from top 25 schools and others.

He has highlights documented on YouTube, the Internet video Web site.

The New York Times has asked that he do a weekly journal.

“Honestly, this is overwhelming for us,” said Brian Te’o, Manti’s father. “We planned to work hard to get him to be somewhat marketable so hopefully he could land a scholarship somewhere. We didn’t know it would blow up into what it is today. I really think it’s because he has been blessed.”

As of yesterday, there were 31 or 32 offers. It’s to the point where Manti has lost count. Brigham Young and Southern California were the first two to offer him. And that was when he was a sophomore. But he can just about name his school. Also offering are Notre Dame, Stanford, Colorado, Tennessee, UCLA and Hawai’i, to name just a few.

“My parents and I thought it would be what the other Kahuku (area) kids get, BYU and UH,” Manti said. “I’m not saying that’s bad or anything, but that’s all we knew was BYU and UH. Suddenly, all these other colleges started coming in.”

In other news, look for BYU defensive coordinator Jaime Hill’s name in a column by ESPN.com’s college football columnist Ivan Maisel…

Another interesting BYU football mention on www.cbf360.com detailing Auburn and BYU tradition. A clip…

“BYU consistently out-schemed, out-hustled, and definitely out-coached its opponents more often than not since Edwards took over in Provo, Utah, as the Cougars never make the elite list of top recruiting classes.

A leftover from today’s camp, defensive tackle Bernard Afutiti, who has been in Provo with his wife for weeks, is now in California personally going to the junior colleges he attended to obtain the necessary paperwork (transcripts) to finalize his admission to BYU.

While in Provo, he was able to do what other BYU players did in voluntary workouts with the team. But once camps started, NCAA rules prohibited him from having any contact with the team. It is uncertain what time frame Afutiti will need to complete his admission work with these transcripts. Often times, I’m told, JC players who look for transcripts for admission in the summer run into problems with JC administrators who might be gone on vacation and their replacements struggle to find and file or post the necessary work.

I’m not saying this has happened in Afutiti’s case, but it might be cause for the delay and it is common. BYU’s own summer school doesn’t finish until next week and it would be tough to get transcripts posted until the 16th or even 20th if some professors don’t complete their work.

BYU’s athletic department officials cannot act on Afututi’s admission papers at all until they are filed through the admissions office in the ASB. Once that is done, academic advisors connected with Mendenhall’s office can fill out his class schedule and get him started with a game plan for class work.