Has Te'o's stock market crashed?

  Undoubtedly the biggest buzz in the college football world over the past month and a half or so has been around Manti Te'o, Notre Dame linebacker, who was allegedly involved in Catfish-style hoax by a young women who was allegedly Te'o's girlfriend. The story broke in mid-January that Te'o's girlfriend, Lennay Kekua, never really existed but was actually a fabricated character carried on by Ronaiah Tuiasosopo who was a former classmate of the young lady's photos who were used to personify Kekua. The story was so heavily covered due to the speculation and uncertainty of Te'o's involvement in the hoax...or rather was it even really a hoax at all? Te'o's spectacular performances throughout Notre Dame's undefeated season this past year left spectators with a more profound admiration and respect for the Notre Dame senior when the report that Kekua had died before a game in which he led Notre Dame to upset Michigan State 20-3 and while recording 12 tackles himself was released. With Te'o once being projected as the 2nd pick in this year's NFL draft overall, just how much has his draft stock dropped after much of America and many NFL franchises are still questioning if they themselves had been tricked by Te'o?
   This past Friday Te'o met with the media for an optional 15 minute interview at the NFL Combine in Indianapolis. His press interview segment was unsurprisingly the most attended of them all and scouts were actually satisfied and impressed with how he conducted himself. What was a let down though was his actual performance in the Combine workouts on Monday. Te'o ran an official time of 4.82 seconds in the 40-yard dash which placed him at 20th of the 26 linebackers at the Combine. According to NFL expert sources, a 4.7 is about the benchmark for 1st round players. In addition, Te'o's judgment and ability to lead in the NFL is now in question as a result of "becoming a victim" to the hoax.
  Lucky for Te'o, he has a Pro Day coming at Notre Dame on March 26th where he will be given the opportunity to improve and physically redeem himself. Failing to improve significantly at his Pro Day can take him from a late 1st round pick, where I feel he is at right now, to the early second round. I have no doubt that he will be drafted within the first 2 days at the very least but he surely has a lot of categories to sell to GM's and coaching staffs on that exceed pure physical capabilities.
 Although I don't believe Te'o was actually a victim of a real hoax, at least not for as long as he claims, I also don't agree that this incident should terribly impact his draft selection spot. If he doesn't improve on his Pro Day, although I feel he will, then that is a different case entirely. However the intangible leadership skills he displayed during his time at Notre Dame should not just become non-existent and a thing of a distant memory because of one bad judgment call. I believe in reality plenty of great football players, active and retired, have made big mistakes when they were 22 years old as well but it just either did not get to the media or was not as massively covered as Te'o's story. Although Te'o's position is often looked upon to be a leader of the defense, perhaps if he is picked up by a team of veterans that aspect of his package won't be needed from him until a few years from now when he's had the time to learn and mature.
   April 25th marks the first day of the NFL draft so despite all the predicting and speculation, we will all see what happens when it's all said and done. Something in football, and sports in general, always happens that no one expects or sees coming. Keep your eyes open.

Sources: LA Times, Dead Spin