C'lay Travis Outkicks His Mental Coverage Once Again

Unsurprisingly, this is one of the first pictures that pops up for "Clay Travis".

The Deadspin story about Notre Dame linebacker Manti Te'o's oft-referenced girlfriend being illusory has spurred plenty of interesting reactions on what this means for the media, story verification procedures, his draft stock and much more. Unfortunately, it's also stirred up some of the worst detritus of the Internet. A case in point comes from C'lay Travis, who's covered college football for Deadspin, AOL FanHouse (RIP), and his current Outkick The Coverage site, plus hosts a Nashville radio show. What's Travis' take on this complicated, layered story that's still coming together? The only plausible rationale here is that Te'o is gay:

This is actually the only story that makes any sense at all. And even if it's true, Te'o will probably deny it because, unfortunately, football players aren't exactly the most welcoming of homosexuality. Otherwise, how are you the star player on a football crazy campus and having an online-only relationship with a woman you've never met? Even Tim Tebow thinks is ridiculous. If you're gay and girls are throwing themselves at you left and right but you continue to rebuff their advances, isn't one of the easiest stories to tell your teammates about why you don't hook up with any of these girls that you have a girlfriend? Even if, you know, that girlfriend isn't actually real. Couldn't being gay even make you more than willing to overlook the fact that your girlfriend didn't want to meet with you? It might be that on some subconscious level Te'o welcomed the hoax because it kept him from having to explain why he didn't have a girlfriend. Furthermore, given that Te'o is Mormon and attending a very religious school, wouldn't being gay be unacceptable to pretty much everyone around him? Having an online girlfiend is an awfully convenient cover. Again, this is just speculation and Te'o would probably deny it anyway, but it actually makes a ton more sense than any other wild theories being tossed out there, that Te'o used the online relationship as a cover for his hidden homosexuality.

To be clear, C'lay is far from the only person who's suggested this, and if this is in fact the case, there will be plenty of support for Te'o from this corner. C'lay has the dubious honour of broaching the topic in the least-tasteful, most-repugnant way possible, though. This is not "the only story that makes any sense at all". C'lay is not inside Te'o's head; he doesn't know the linebacker's motivations, he doesn't know how this apparent relationship unfolded and he certainly doesn't know Te'o's sexual preferences. So why has he come up with this speculation? Well, as seen from other parts of his piece, C'lay believes that all straight men are attracted to the same things and all men handle relationships the same way. Another choice quote:

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