Prized recruit won't be playing for BYU

Five-star recruit Manti Te'o won't be signing a national letter-of-intent with BYU.

The top-rated high school linebacker in the country said Saturday that he has narrowed down his college choices to three — USC, UCLA and Notre Dame. He eliminated BYU and Stanford from his list.

"I love BYU and I have three cousins there, and I really thought I'd want to play there and be with them," Te'o told totalbluesports.com. "But when it came down to it, I just thought I could make a bigger impact and be a bigger influence elsewhere. I think at a school like USC or UCLA, I could really represent the Mormon church well."

Te'o contacted Cougar coach Bronco Mendenhall on Saturday to inform him of his decision.

"I have a lot of respect for Bronco Mendenhall and for BYU," Te'o told the Web site. "It just didn't work out and it was a very tough decision for me to drop BYU because of my family there, but I feel the other schools just offer more for me right now."