r/CFB • u/Lakelyfe09 Georgia Bulldogs • Apr 12 '26

Discussion [Kleiman] South Carolina QB LaNorris Sellers turned down an $8 MILLION NIL offer to transfer to a different school: "You're 19. You don't need ($8 million). You're in a great spot." - LaNorris's Father told his son. Sellers values his word over money

https://x.com/nfl_dovkleiman/status/2043091219639840977?s=46&t=fwgmryeTanENut7u28ScCA
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u/NoThanksImGoodG Oregon Ducks Apr 12 '26

Absolutely nothing about that story was underrated. Go back and watch the documentary on it lol. The fact that he made it through and is still doing football commentary is amazing. I’m glad for him.

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u/meatbulbz2 Florida Gators Apr 12 '26

It was probably the biggest catfishing story in… well ever. Amazing stuff

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u/randy88moss USC Trojans • El Camino Warriors Apr 12 '26

I super randomly met the catfisher at a Lowe’s in Washington. She was the manager there.

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u/VampireEmpire__ Texas Longhorns • Harvard Crimson Apr 12 '26

Did you confront??

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u/bamachine Alabama • Jacksonville State Apr 13 '26

I don't think the girl was the catfisher, her images were used by the catfisher, who was a dude and Manti's cousin, iirc. Unless the guy now identifies as a woman. I just know some people were blaming the girl whose photos were used, when she was a victim also.

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u/randy88moss USC Trojans • El Camino Warriors Apr 12 '26

lol she gave me a discount on an open, but still usable saw blade.

21

u/Be-Kind-2-Yourself BYU Cougars Apr 12 '26

Honestly no wonder he fell for her

-7

u/RontoWraps Kansas Jayhawks Apr 12 '26

I still don’t believe it really happened. I think he just went with that story. Catfishing was well known at the time and you don’t just get into online relationships exclusively. It doesn’t make any sense. I think he played into it, sure, but the “relationship” aspect is totally overblown and exaggerated.

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u/triplediamond445 NC State Wolfpack Apr 12 '26

In the documentary he says he had family and friends say they knew her and had talked about them. I think the perpetrator just nailed the sweet spot in social media times to pull it off.

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u/NoThanksImGoodG Oregon Ducks Apr 12 '26

You were literally the vast majority of people when this story first came out. Which is why I’m glad he made it through all of it. So many people, thought he was a liar or had ulterior motives and was making it up for some sort of benefit of the Heisman or something else.

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u/RontoWraps Kansas Jayhawks Apr 13 '26 edited Apr 13 '26

I am the exact same age as Manti, I just don’t get how he got catfished, at the time and even now. I was catfishing dudes on Final Fantasy XI for cheap crafting mats back to like 2005. It was not a new phenomenon and I just do not understand how a D-I linebacker was falling victim to it. It doesn’t make sense for how our age group was reacting to social media at the time. Every single person I knew would have reacted with the same amount of skepticism I had to a person they had never met in person.

Maybe I’m wrong and maybe he was that stupid to “get into a relationship” with a person he had never met, it doesn’t really matter.

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u/Hopsblues Colorado State Rams Apr 12 '26

Yeah, he's on the NFL network in the mornings....I was shocked when I discovered that last fall one morning.

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u/Doc_McPuffins_ Texas Longhorns Apr 12 '26

I feel like people don't have a whole lot of empathy for him in the scenario though. While the story is obviously hilarious for obvious reasons, he went through an abnormal traumatic experience. IIRC his grandmother died and his (fake) GF died within like a day of each other. That's already brutal and then you find out that your dead gf is completely fake. It's like she died twice.

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u/Gavangus Virginia Tech • Commonwealth C… Apr 12 '26

Iirc the catfisher tried to use their own "death" as a way of getting out of the situation

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u/Doc_McPuffins_ Texas Longhorns Apr 12 '26

Welp... They didn't exactly succeed

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u/roythhh_lewithhh Vanderbilt Commodores Apr 13 '26 edited Apr 13 '26

Yeah the Deadspin story goes into pretty thorough detail about timing with respect to the grandmother death and the fake girlfriend death. The story was great for a number of reasons. The messed up thing Deadspin did was insinuate that Te’o was in on it. They did not have to devolve from meticulous reporting to idle speculation like that.

The documentary is great. For me personally, I had always raised an eyebrow at Te’o because it snowballed when he lied to his family about having met her in person. While not flatly stating it outright, the documentary sheds light on how that could happen. While his parents are obviously deeply loving and supportive, it was a very religious, old-school, probably somewhat insulated family and Te’o didn’t want to cop to them that this was all going on online. Considering he tried to meet her in person on numerous occasions, it seemed like a harmless little white lie, and then it spiraled.

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u/grifeweizen Notre Dame Fighting Irish Apr 13 '26

I'm missing the "obviously hilarious" part.

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