Deadspin: Manti Te'o's dead girlfriend story was a hoax

Is Tuiososopo going to end up in ditch?

 

Wouldn't be surprised at all if the "get" was in exchange for ESPN not breaking the story. Or vice-versa, ESPN knew they had the interview as soon as the story hit and figured they didn't want to risk losing it.

 

Interesting stuff here

http://everyfacetofthegame.blogspot.com/2013/01/catfished.html?m=1

The tweets seem to point to a giant hoax on Te'o and one he wasn't aware of until early December.

My opinion on this story shifted greatly after reading those tweets. Now it is he's a naive kid who got tricked by people he trusted.

 

That SI cover story did wonders for Te'o's national profile. He definitely was not a household name in September. I'd heard of him. I'm guessing most of the people here had heard of him, but your average college football fan outside of Illinois or Indiana? Hell no...

 

Sarah Phillips is going to co-author Teo's autobiography.

 

Hm. Maybe you and Dick are right. Like I said, it's all semantics. I just thought he was way more popular a few months ago then you guys are saying. I could be wrong, though.

 

I had heard Te'o mentioned as a contender for some defensive awards like the Butkus or Nagurski, but that was it.

 

One of my best friends from high school talked to us for a couple years about his "girlfriend," a woman he met on Facebook "from Tennessee." Every time they planned to meet, she would back out of it for some reason. We would whisper about it with each other and largely just kind of change the subject when he talked about her since it was so awkward.

 

Did anybody catch Teddy Greenstein on ESPN Radio this morning freely admitting that the Te'o story influenced him to vote for Te'o for the Heisman?

 

Did he talk to her for eight hours at a time at night?

 

He said that on Twitter last night, too. The Te'o "character"/"perseverance" angle was a huge talking point of the Notre Dame fan base around Heisman time, particularly after the NYT Manziel story dropped.

 

Good question. Like I said, we tried to change the subject as quickly as we could.

I definitely think that Te'o told some white lies and some exaggerations that won't hold up under scrutiny. I don't think he was complicit in the thing, though.