Manti Te'o had an Imaginary Girlfriend

It seems that there is an unusual story coming out today in College Football.

Manti Te'o, a linebacker for Notre Dame, had a girlfriend that he had developed relations with over the Internet. She would end up dying of Leukemia in September and when Manti Te'o found this out, it was just six hours after learning that his grandmother had just died. The story would garner national attention and help build up the interest around Notre Dame and Te'o as a leader of the team. He would go on to finish 2nd in the Heisman voting.

Now imagine that the girlfriend part of that whole story wasn't true.

Accoridng to Deadspin.com, the supposed girlfriend of Manti Te'o named Lennay Kekua never existed. The whole romantic story between them was nothing more than a hoax started by a friend named Ronaiah Tuiasosopo. It seems that it was nothing more than a fake twitter account using another woman's picture. The mystery woman noticed her image being used in place of Lennay Kekua and eventually told Deadspin.com about it and of Tuiasosopo who was a classmate of her's back in high school.

While Manti Te'o has said he was the victim of a hoax, a friend of Ronaiah Tuiasosopo told Deadspin.com that he was "80 percent sure" that Te'o was "in on it" and it was for publicity. Notre Dame is currently conducting an investigation around the matter.

Look Manti, we've all made up a girlfriend from time to time but you don't kill her off. You say you broke up with her, she moved away, that you had a chance at hooking up with the homecoming queen and she found out.

In all seriousness (or at least all I can muster), how does something like this slip through the cracks? What else isn't true in the sports world? Is Tom Brady's wife Giselle really a model? Did Kaepernick really write a letter to himself in the 4th grade? Was Colin even under 6 feet tall? Can Drew Brees' kid really kick a football through an entire neighborhood?

Whatever the truth is, it's out there... along with the true identity of Manti's fake dead girlfriend.

P.S. It was either this guy or Johnny "Beer Pong." Great Heisman choices last year.