Manti Te’o: Dead girlfriend story is a hoax

Notre Dame is standing by Manti Te’o, the talented linebacker whose girlfriend’s death was an inspiration straight out of Rockne and Rudy lore.

Ultimately, the story was just too good to be true, as Deadspin’s Timothy Burke and Jack Dickey reported. Someone using the fictitious name Lennay Kekua “apparently ingratiated herself” with Te’o in what was “exclusively an online relationship,” according to Notre Dame Athletic Director Jack Swarbrick, then conspired with others to convince him that she had died of leukemia. It’s something straight out of “Catfish,” an MTV show.

“I want to stress, as someone who has probably been as engaged in this as anyone in the past couple of weeks, that nothing about what I have learned has shaken my faith in Manti Te’o one iota,” Swarbrick said in an emotional press conference Wednesday night.