Having Manti Te’o isn’t all good for Notre Dame. That’s right, I said it. And I see your responses. Utter shock. Gasps. The drilling a screw into your hand with your 18v Li-ion Rigid, instead of the new primed swimming pool deck board. Blasphemy, you say.

There is a reason I say this, so let me explain.

Sure, the Flyin’ Hawaiian looks to be a “once every 10 year” type of player. He looks like Andy Katzenmoyer. He looks like Jevon Kearse. He looks like Julius Peppers. Or Lawrence Taylor (without the zeal for Coke-and not the same kind that Mean Joe Greene liked). He looks like he can forget his helmet on the bench, get fooled by the play-action fake, chase down the running back who indeed does not have the ball, toss him to the side like he was Bridget Moynahan after he realizes this, do a 180 and reverse field, and then steam engine into the quarterback that thought he was safe after the masterful fake, then sack him for a 10 yard loss, killing the threat of USC. In other words, he is a difference maker.

He proved this when he maxed out the stat line with 10 tackles in his first real action against Washington. When he got to the ball carrier so fast, the ball wasn’t even in his hands. When he opened up the field for everybody else (like Brian Smith), and the Irish front 7 played its best game yet.

But, with the good comes the bad. And that bad (if you like to get a dose of Irish news occasionally) is going to be a whole lot of overkill when writers try to get us a closer look at “Manti Te’o the person” by throwing in lines about how cold he gets in the Indiana weather.

You see, Te’o is from Hawaii, the land of beaches and pineapple. Notre Dame is in the midwest-and in case you didn’t know, midwest winters are cold. Obviously, the move from a warm-weather place to a cold-weather is an adjustment. Who wants to live in freezing weather? And writers just can’t seem to resist using this lead-in when talking about Te’o. It will get old quick (it already has for me). And it will never die, even though the market will continue to be saturated with “Manti is cold” stories.

Some samples ( warning: may include sarcasm):

-For most freshman football players, adjusting from the speed of the high school to college game is a major concern.
And so are classes.
While those may be on the radar for standout Irish freshman linebacker Manti Te’o, they are no where near his top concern.
For the Hawaii native, concern number one is the South Bend weather.
“It’s been hard, it’s been very hard,” Te’o said this week with a laugh. “I haven’t really gotten used to seeing the temperatures in the 40s so often in my life.”
40s?
You may want to get ready Manti. It’s going to get worse.

-In the aftermath of Notre Dame’s 37-30 overtime extinguishing of Washington, Te’o was not thinking about how his young career had just turned its first corner, was not fast-forwarding to the Oct. 17 matchup with USC, was not preoccupied about how much his body ached and his mind felt lighter
“For me it was just a big relief to get out of the cold,” said the 6-foot-2, 244-pound linebacker from Laie, Hawaii. “That’s the main thing. That’s all that was on my mind.”

-Manti’s gift from his parents for his birthday? 36 pairs of gloves for South Bend winters.

-What class does Manti wish was on his schedule? “How To Use A Windshield Scraper”

- Manti’s one vice? “Hot Chocolate to soothe the cold.”

-Manti showed the heart of a champion like this once before when the odds were stacked against him. In a snowball fight.

Maddening.

Okay, we get it, South Bend is cold. And if Notre Dame wants to be relevant in today’s college football, there better be a whole bunch of warm-weather elite recruits who are like Manti and don’t care.

A message to the best receiver in college football. (I am not sure who you are, but some say you are Oklahoma State’s Dez Bryant. Some say you are Alabama’s Julio Jones. Then, there are others that say Georgia’s A.J. Green, or Illinois’ Regis Benn.) Whoever your are, your days may be be numbered. There is a new kid in town. The entire nation has now been introduced to Irish sophomore sensation-Michael Floyd.

To be fair, Floyd was not an unknown. He has the best receiving season for a freshman in Notre Dame history: 48rec, 719yds, and 7 touchdowns. The national media did give him some props, but it was always as second fiddle to the receivers mentioned above. Especially annoying was that 2 of those (J. Jones, and A.J. Green), are both true sophomores like Floyd, show similar talent levels as Floyd, but they (and not Floyd) are considered the cream of that year’s crop. It must be because those boys play in the SEC , and that automatically means they’re numbers have a higher value than Floyd’s (Okay, they had a little bit better numbers, but you had to worry about the Tide’s running game first when playing ‘Bama, and Green was only the third ‘Dawg to worry about after game-planning for Moreno and Stafford). Or maybe he was overshadowed because Jones had some picture that went viral where he appeared to be doing his Incredible Hulk impersonation and leaping over the Empire State Building.

A look at any college football analyst’s best wide receiver list looks something like this:

1. Dez Bryant, Oklahoma State
2. Julio Jones, Alabama
3. A.J. Green, Georgia
4. Damian Williams, USC
5. Arrelious Benn, Illinois
6. Jordan Shipley, Texas
7. Golden Tate, Notre Dame
8. Mardy Gilyard, Cincinnati

Hmm… there is a certain name missing. But, after September 5th, Michael Floyd’s name will not be missing anymore. Not after a 4 catch, 189 yard, 3 touchdown clinic. Not after showing the holy receiving trinity of size, speed, and leaping ability. Basically, Floyd has more potential as a receiver than Luke Skywalker had as a Jedi. And it won’t hurt Floyd that he has Clausen throwing to him, and having Tate and Rudolph will make it dangerous to double him.

So college football talking heads, scratch your heads, get your erasers or white-out ready, make your finger ready to hit delete on your keyboard, and be prepared to move Michael Floyd on up to the east side of college football’s best receivers. (Even thought you don’t want to because he’s a Domer.)

“Still, it’s doubtful Notre Dame’s offense will be the well-oiled machine it was in 2005 and ‘06 or that it’s defense will be nationally elite, which is why the Irish’s sudden inclusion in the top 25 remains a bit of a leap of faith. I don’t believe it’s justified just yet.”

-Stewart Mandel, Sports Illustrated

Mandel, of course you realize, this means war (at least on the offense comment). Because Notre Dame’s offense will be better in 2009 than it was when Weis ruled offense back in 2005.

First, let me say that there aren’t many better college football writers than Mandel. He writes well, is extremely knowledgeable (few people know enough to write a book on their craft), is even-keeled in judgments, and has Northwestern smarts. Plus, he gets bonus points for objectifying women in the smoothest possible way-as innocent “mailbag crushes”. (He takes a hot, but “down to earth” girl and parlays her likability into increased readership. Brilliant.)

But in this case, he is wrong.

Let me count the ways.

1.) The quarterbacking explosion in ‘05 was a surprise, but you can see this one coming. Nobody expected Quinn to turn into a franchise quarterback after his first 2 years (26tds, 25ints). Weis came aboard and changed his whole career (and Irish fortunes). The turnaround that he accomplished with seasoned players was unavailable. Now, Weis is going into his 3rd year of tutoring Clausen (only 2 with Brady), and the lights are starting to come on. We’ve already seen Jimmy’s potential in games like Purdue, Stanford, North Carolina (Weis put the whole game on the sophomore’s shoulders-and it nearly worked), and of course, Hawaii. After all of his learning experiences, Clausen could make a quantum leap this year, which would lead to an unbelievable offensive season.

2.) Offensive line should be better than 2005. Both have experience (over 100 career starts). 2005’s was senior-laden, and 2009’s will be. 2005’s had one big name Ryan Harris-and the rest (Stevenson, Levoir, Sullivan) were solid guys who did their job. Weis was damned if he had to sub one of those guys though. 2009’s has a giant name as well-Sam Young, but the overall depth and competition (Weis said he could be comfortable going 2 and maybe 3 deep) means that this line will have hungrier players who have earned the rights to knock helmets. As we know from Pete Carroll, competition brings out the best in spirit-and in play.

3.) ND’s offense will have more options. In 2005 versus 2009, the only clear choice for 2005 is the smooth Darius Walker at running back. The 2009 receiving corp of Tate, Floyd, and Rudolph, is far more explosive than the Samardzija, Stovall, Fasano group of 2005. In 2005, Weis could not even trot out 5 wide. In 2009, the depth chart has top 100 receivers (as recruits) in Duval Kamara, Deion Walker, and Shaq Evans to take pressure off the main guys. Clausen already throws with more accuracy and zip that Quinn could (though Quinn was phenomenal in the pocket). I’ll take my chances with explosive-the 2009 group.

(That’s three big ways- exactly the same amount of licks it took to get to the center of a Tootsie-Roll Pop back in the day.)

The 2005 Irish offense has some top-of-the-line players, but the 2009 offense has the weapons and diversity to put on a show like we haven’t seen before (if the o-line does their part).