NEW YORK » When Notre Dame linebacker Manti Te’o won the Bednarik Award as the top defensive player this week, he said he "was at a loss for words."

When he won the Maxwell Award as the most outstanding player Thursday, he said he was speechless.

And Friday afternoon as he attended a Heisman Trophy press conference here at Times Square, slumping into a chair in front of several dozen media, he said, "I’m tired. I just want to go to sleep."

But after a morning that began in Orlando and a week that has seen him twice appear in New York, wrapped around stops in Charlotte, N.C., and Houston, his heavy eyelids perked up at the sight of the Heisman Trophy, college sports’ most celebrated award.

Te’o has won a record six individual awards this month, and today on a 3 p.m. ESPN program, the biggest one, the Heisman, will be presented to one of the three finalists.

On Friday, Te’o got to hold the Heisman and stand for pictures with the 45-pound bronze statue, finding the energy to joke with his main rival for the trophy, Texas A&M quarterback Johnny Manziel. When it was Manziel’s turn to pose with the trophy, Te’o said, "Good luck, bro’."

The other finalist, Kansas State quarterback Collin Klein, was in Baltimore for the Johnny Unitas Award and did not appear at the press conference.

Manziel, a redshirt freshman, said the travel has been tiring and said he has come to ask his family, "Is this real life?"

As for Te’o, he’s kept one eye toward the Fighting Irish’s Jan. 7 Bowl Championship Series title game against Alabama, for which Notre Dame began practice Friday in South Bend, Ind., sans their team captain.

After trying to restrain himself and be disciplined in his eating at a New York Italian restaurant (pasta, chicken parmesan and bread only) for lunch, Te’o is said he planned to find "someplace to go work out."

And, "then get some sleep."