ESPN College Football

Y'all should know what No. 1 is by now …

Nov. 24 2012: Goal-line stand halts USC, caps perfect season (Stories here, here, here, here, here and here)

The irony could not be lost: The preseason No. 1 team in the country found itself unranked heading into its regular-season finale against its arch-rival — the nation's new No. 1 team, which had actually entered the season unranked.

Theo Riddick carved up the USC defense for 146 rushing yards, Kyle Brindza hit five field goals, Notre Dame held Marqise Lee in check, Manti Te'o recorded his seventh interception and, with a little more than five minutes standing between Notre Dame and a perfect season, the Irish defense lined up in front of the end zone for one last stop.

As Brent Musburger said: "A goal-line stand for the ages."

Down 22-13, USC had a first-and-goal from the Irish 2.

A false start. A 3-yard rush. Consecutive defensive pass interference penalties. Two QB sneaks for nothing. A rush for no gain. An incomplete pass.

It took eight plays and three minutes, and afterward Notre Dame was celebrating another goal-line stand against a Pac-12 rival. Its tickets were punched to Miami, where the Irish would face Alabama in the Discover BCS National Championship.

They had completed the perfect journey in the regular season, overcoming what looked like a daunting schedule. Brian Kelly continued the trend of Irish coaches succeeding in their third season in South Bend, Ind.

Afterward, athletic director Jack Swarbrick spoke for everyone in saying that yes, this much success had come sooner than expected.

Things didn't end so well for the Irish against the Crimson Tide, but they and their fans will be able to hang onto this moment, and this season, forever.

From South Bend to Southern California, Notre Dame had marched on to South Beach, 12-0.

Previously

No. 10: Rees replaces Golson on final drive, leads Irish to win over Purdue

No. 9: Irish open season in Dublin with rout of Navy

No. 8: ND gets revenge on Robinson, UM in night win to cap perfect opening month

No. 7: ND survives missed FG, missed penalty and 3 OT scare from Pitt to stay perfect

No. 6: Notre Dame tours award circuit after perfect regular season

No. 5: Notre Dame joins ACC, will play five ACC games per year in football

No. 4: Irish rout Wake on Senior Day, ascend to No. 1

No. 3: Goal-line stand stuffs Stanford in OT

No. 2: Brown catch leads to big fourth in upset at OU

No. 3? That would be the highlight of the home season for the Irish.

Oct. 13, 2012: Goal-line stand stuffs Stanford in OT (Stories here and here)

ESPN's College GameDay was in town. The rainy elements were befitting an old-school matchup. Then Notre Dame and Stanford took turns beating the brains out of each other for nearly four hours.

Everett Golson had his most uneven start of the season, losing three fumbles but throwing a tying touchdown pass to Tyler Eifert in the fourth quarter. Down three on the Irish's final drive of regulation, Golson was drilled by the Cardinal's Usua Amanam, knocking the signal caller out with what was eventually ruled as a concussion. Tommy Rees entered and completed 4 of 4 passes for the game, setting up Kyle Brindza's 22-yard game-tying field goal with 20 seconds left and hitting T.J. Jones for a 7-yard touchdown pass in overtime.

Holding on to a 20-13 lead, the Irish then stuffed running back Stepfan Taylor four straight times inside the 5-yard line, withstanding a video replay on the final stop to set off a party for the ages inside Notre Dame Stadium.

The final stop of Taylor set off some debate. Officials also marked the ball wrong on an earlier Stanford possession. And coach David Shaw said that his players had stopped playing on a third-down play on the Cardinal's penultimate possession, as they heard an alleged whistle from the crowd.

No matter. Stanford had beaten Notre Dame three straight years before this matchup, outrushing the Irish by a 642-208 margin over the course of those contests. The Irish out-rushed the Cardinal this time, with a goal-line stand securing the win, their sixth of the season — one over a team that ended up winning the Rose Bowl.

At the end of the regular season, athletic director Jack Swarbrick pointed to the Stanford contest as the game in which the team had turned the corner, as Notre Dame reached the halfway point of the season unscathed with a thrilling win.

Previously

No. 10: Rees replaces Golson on final drive, leads Irish to win over Purdue

No. 9: Irish open season in Dublin with rout of Navy

No. 8: ND gets revenge on Robinson, UM in night win to cap perfect opening month

No. 7: ND survives missed FG, missed penalty and 3 OT scare from Pitt to stay perfect

No. 6: Notre Dame tours award circuit after perfect regular season

No. 5: Notre Dame joins ACC, will play five ACC games per year in football

No. 4: Irish rout Wake on Senior Day, ascend to No. 1

Today brings us to the eighth-most memorable moment from Notre Dame's 2012 season.

As always, my mailbag is open to hear your suggestions on rankings such as these.

Sept. 22, 2012: ND gets revenge on Robinson, UM in night win to cap perfect opening month (Stories here, here and here)

For a Notre Dame fans who watched Michigan quarterbacks rally to last-second wins over the Irish in each of the previous three years, this was perfect. The Irish forced Denard Robinson into the worst performance of his career — on his 22nd birthday, no less — as Shoelace turned it over five times to all but doom the Wolverines' chances.

Everett Golson wasn't much better himself, getting replaced by Tommy Rees early. But Rees came through again for the Irish, even rushing it in himself for the game's only touchdown. (Seriously, who predicted Rees to get more rushing touchdowns than Robinson?)

Michigan had a stretch in the first half of five straight passes getting picked off, as running back Vincent Smith tossed an interception to Nicky Baratti in the end zone.

The win made the Irish perfect through month No. 1, giving them their first 4-0 start in 10 years. At the time, the post-game celebration was considered one of the best scenes of the college football season, with "Oh, What a Night!" blasting over the speakers as the fans -- decked in leis to support Manti Te'o through what was then believed to be a double-dose of tragedy -- stayed in their seats while the players jumped into the crowd.

The revelation of the Te'o girlfriend hoax no doubt takes some luster off the night as a whole -- he recorded two picks, landed on the Sports Illustrated cover the following week and said that the game was the same day as his purported girlfriend's funeral -- but there is no denying what a big win this was for the Notre Dame program as a whole, especially after losing to rival USC at home a year earlier in what was the first Notre Dame Stadium night game in 21 years.

(This was also the same night that Jack Swarbrick handed David Brandon an envelope calling off the series after the 2015 season, but Irish fans will always have this night to remember.)

Previously

No. 10: Rees replaces Golson on final drive, leads Irish to win over Purdue

No. 9: Irish open season in Dublin with rout of Navy

Enjoy the long weekend, folks.

• Missed this earlier, but The Observer sat down with AD Jack Swarbrick recently to discuss the athletic year.
• SI.com's Chris Burke says that Tyler Eifert's pairing with the Bengals could be mutually beneficial.
• BlueandGold.com's Lou Somogyi looks at Ara Parseghian as the former coach turned 90 this week.
• The athletic department has a new video looking at DaVaris Daniels' path to becoming a leader.

CHICAGO -- Michigan athletic director Dave Brandon didn't do the chicken dance when asked about Notre Dame's decision to stop the annual series with the Wolverines after 2014.

"I'm not sure I would have used the word chicken," Brandon told ESPN.com, referring to Michigan coach Brady Hoke's comments Monday about Notre Dame "chickening out" of the series. "That's kind of how football coaches would think about it, and that's OK. Brady's a pretty straightforward guy. I would just say Notre Dame had choices to make, and they chose to back away from a rivalry game we've had on our schedule for a long time."

Notre Dame athletic director Jack Swarbrick informed Brandon in September that Notre Dame would exercise a three-year out clause in the schools' contract, meaning the teams would stop playing annually after the 2014 game in South Bend, Ind. Michigan and Notre Dame had extended their contract through the 2031 meeting but on a three-year rolling basis, which gave one side a chance to back out.

Notre Dame's agreement with the ACC, which will include five games per season, prompted the move. Michigan has games with Arkansas, Virginia Tech, Oregon State, BYU and others scheduled for future seasons.

Although many would like to see Michigan and Notre Dame resume their series, Brandon says don't hold your breath.

"It's going to be a long time," Brandon said. "We've both been busily scheduling out into years into the future. And as I understood it from my counterpart at Notre Dame, they're making plans to go in a different direction. So the earliest we could schedule would be sometime post-2021, 2022, and when you start talking that far out, who knows. So it's going to be a while.

"The night game we have at Michigan Stadium this September, and then our last trip down to South Bend next year are going to be really exciting because it's going to be the end of the rivalry, at least for a considerable period of time."

Brandon used the word "disappointed" several times in discussing the end of the series, but Michigan is moving forward with a schedule model he hopes will position the Wolverines for the College Football Playoff. Although Brandon doesn't sound like he'll add another neutral-site game in the immediate future -- Michigan and Alabama opened the 2012 season in Arlington, Texas -- he recognizes the need to upgrade the schedule.

"We have a lot of work to do to regain our footing in terms of playing competition that's going to be attractive to our fans, help us build our programs and help us compete at the national level," Brandon said. "I'm a big believer that we should be strengthening our schedule and working hard to go out and fill those nonconference positions with the kinds of programs that are going to excite our fans, bring a lot of attention to us as we are broadcast on television and ultimately put in a position where we're going to have better football programs."

Brandon is trying to "take a negative and turn it into a positive" regarding Notre Dame and spread Michigan's wings more with new non-league opponents.

"At Michigan," Brandon said, "we want to compete for one of those four spots at the end of the season."

One of the staples of the Notre Dame football team the past couple of seasons has been the YouTube series "Trick Shot Monday," which is pretty self-explanatory: A group of football players try to bounce a ping-pong ball into a cup.

Easier said than done, as a number of Irish coaches recently found out.

In a funny parody of the football team's weekly contest, Notre Dame head coaches Bobby Bayliss, Jay Louderback, Randy Waldrum, Deanna Gumpf, Christine Halfpenny and Bobby Clark -- along with bloggin' extraordinaire Josh Flynt -- enter athletic director Jack Swarbrick's office to try their hand.

No such luck, until cornerback Bennett Jackson walks in -- taking a study break, of course -- and calmly sinks a shot that would make Larry Bird proud.

Swarbrick keeps his cool throughout it all, tapping away at his keyboard during the commotion before he steps up to the plate himself after everyone else exits his office.

The YouTube video was part of the athletic department's O.S.C.A.R.S. (Outstanding Student-Athletes Celebrating Achievements & Recognition Showcase) celebration on May 1, generating more than 16,000 views since it was uploaded Thursday.

For a school that has a reputation for often taking itself too seriously, this is a very welcome reprieve.

With a very nice sweet and subtle celebration from Mr. Swarbrick to cap it all off at the end.

Notre Dame and NBC have renewed their football deal for 10 more years, the network announced Thursday, taking the two through the 2025 season.

The length of the deal will make their partnership 35 years old in all, and it will run as long as the agreement for college football's new playoff.

The NBC Sports Group will retain global media rights on all platforms to a minimum of seven Fighting Irish home games per year. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

“While our relationship with NBC Sports is longstanding, the more recent merger between NBC and Comcast has opened up additional avenues to expand the breadth of Notre Dame-related sports programming on NBC platforms,” Notre Dame vice president and athletics director Jack Swarbrick said in a statement. “Specifically, the evolution of the NBC Sports Network has provided opportunities for special programming featuring inside looks at our football team and several other Notre Dame sports programs and in-depth profiles on the unsung heroes of Notre Dame athletics. These are examples of the growth of our partnership, and we look forward to collaborating on additional projects and distribution strategies in seasons to come.”

Notre Dame's seven games on NBC this past season averaged 4.4 million viewers and a 2.8 household rating, up 69 percent and 67 percent, respectively, according to the network.

Previous extensions between the two had run for five years, with the most recent one having been set to expire in 2015.

“Coming off one of Notre Dame’s best and most dramatic seasons in decades, we could not be more proud to extend this historic partnership, which continues to be one of the most innovative in sports-media history,” NBC Sports Group chairman Mark Lazarus said in a statement. “We are particularly excited that this extension offers enhanced rights that allow us to bring Notre Dame Football to fans on more platforms than ever before.”

Enjoy the weekend.

Steve from Wishing Waters, Ariz., writes: Hello, Matt. My name is Steve. My question for your amusement is this: Which freshman receiver has the best chance to make an immediate impact, and possibly start since day 1? With the departure of young Neal and young Ferguson, someone should have potential, am I right? Steve, out

Matt Fortuna: Steve, I think both James Onwualu and Corey Robinson will see the field this year, and I think Robinson will have the chance to make a number of big plays. He has great speed on the perimeter and nice hands. At 6-foot-4-and-a-quarter, it is easy to see him become a red-zone target this season for the Irish.

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Alex Ballentine from New Philadelphia, Ohio, writes: Hey Matt, despite being a TCU fan, I am still an avid reader of your blog. I appreciate your contributions to society. As a matter of fact, my friend and colleague, Bronson from New Philadelphia, Ohio wrote you a question a few mailbags ago. My question is about the offense. I've been hearing that Everett Golson has been getting bigger and stronger this offseason and has been progressing very nicely. Assuming he continues to develop in the mental aspect of the game, do you see Brian Kelly tweaking the offense and running a faster tempo like he did in his Cincinnati days? Thanks in advance.

Matt Fortuna: Thanks for the kind words, Alex. How do you end up as a TCU fan living in Ohio? I think the offense will go as Golson goes as it relates to speed, and I think that's part of the reason so much was put into him last season. He is unquestionably the quarterback of the future and has the best improvisational skills on the team. Becoming more durable will be essential with so much time left for him to see on the field, and I think he is the guy that Kelly sees as eventually getting Notre Dame's offense to the pace he wants it to be.

---

Steven from Miami writes: Matt, always enjoy your insight and comments. It seems that Notre Dame and NBC have completed their contract negotiations at least 18 months in advance of the TV contract expiring. In fact Swarbrick indicated mid last year and again in January of this year that the deal was within 30 days. What is status? Has Notre Dame association with ACC and ESPN holding this up...does Notre Dame take opportunity to go out and freelance for first time in many years insofar as TV contract. I look forward to your response. Steve

Matt Fortuna: Thanks, Steven. While nothing has been signed or announced in the time frame that Jack Swarbrick originally gave back in the summer, the program has always said it has every intention to re-up with NBC. They said the delay at the time was more a matter of creating new platforms for the program to showcase itself, and other supplementary matters. Given the way last season went, it's probably a good thing that the Irish did not sign anything last summer, as its value has only risen.

Notre Dame athletic director Jack Swarbrick will deliver the keynote address at the 2013 Sports Video Group College Sports Summit on May 29.

The summit is a two-day event at the Hyatt Hotel in Atlanta that examines the business of college sports video, the makings of broadcasts, fan experiences and includes other interactive events. It bills itself as "the top professional-networking event to learn about anything and everything in collegiate sports production industry."

The second day will feature a look at Fighting Irish Digital Media, one of several initiatives that Swarbrick is credited with leading in his six years at Notre Dame. (Swarbrick will speak at 12:30 p.m. on the first day.)

From the summit's website:

Jack Swarbrick, vice president and director of athletics at the University of Notre Dame, will serve as the keynote speaker for the SVG College Sports Summit. Swarbrick has risen to national prominence as a lawyer, consultant and executive in the collegiate and Olympic sports industries. Among his many accomplishments in his five years at the helm, Swarbrick led the charge and oversaw the development and launch of Fighting Irish Digital Media—a major initiative that will deliver better information about and access to Notre Dame and its athletic programs via expanded production and distribution of programming. Swarbrick will address the implementation of a robust digital media campus facility and the complexities of relationships with national broadcast partners.

Orlando must really not like Dwight right now.

• MNF's Jon Gruden evaluates Manti Te'o.
• IrishIllustrated.com's Tim Prister analyzes the kicking game heading into spring.
• BlueandGold.com's Lou Somogyi previews 2013 opponent Stanford.
• AD Jack Swarbrick sees stability in Notre Dame's new home, Eric Hansen writes in the South Bend Tribune.

With the impending announcement that Notre Dame would conclude its 12-0 regular season by facing defending national champion Alabama in the Discover BCS National Championship, Irish players were met in their lockers by blue and gold T-shirts with the phrase "Unfinished Business."

They wore them during the Dec. 2 viewing party when they found out they were officially bound for Sun Life Stadium. Now, after the Crimson Tide beat them every which way Jan. 7 as they won their third national title in the past four years, they can begin spring practice and the ensuing 2013 season with a similar theme as they look to close the gap following a renaissance campaign.

That was obvious to athletic director Jack Swarbrick in the immediate aftermath of his team's first and only loss of 2012 -- "There are 121 FBS schools, and we're in pretty good shape relative to all but one of them" -- and it was obvious to coach Brian Kelly three weeks later, when he spoke publicly for the first time since the night of the title game.

"On that day, Alabama was the winner by 28 points, and it's our job to begin work as to how we close that gap," Kelly said Jan. 28. "That gap on that day was certainly one that we got a chance to experience. Here's the great thing for me: In the three short years when I stood before [my team] my first year, we did not have a player on our roster that had beaten a Top 25 team. Three years later, we're playing in the national championship game with 15-plus starters coming back. So, really excited about the progress that our program has made in a very short period of time."

A loud January that saw the Tide rout, Kelly's flirtation with the Philadelphia Eagles and the Manti Te'o girlfriend hoax gave way to a February that saw Notre Dame bring in the country's No. 4 recruiting class on national signing day. The Irish beefed up an offensive line that was strong on its first tier but sorely lacked capable, healthy bodies day-to-day.

Five of those incoming recruits enrolled in January, and now they begin preparing with the rest of the team for spring practice -- a session that will begin much the same way the Irish's postseason did.

CHICAGO — There is nothing new to report on a contract extension for Brian Kelly, Jack Swarbrick said Sunday. The Notre Dame head coach and athletic director started discussions in December and are confident something will get done, however distant in the future that may be.

"It's just a normal process," Swarbrick said at the Hockey City Classic at Soldier Field. "We started in December and it'll get wrapped up. There's absolutely nothing notable about it. It's moving at the — I'll beat my pace with Mike Brey. It took me what? Took me about a year with Mike. I'll do better, I promise."

Swarbrick was referring to the Irish men's basketball coach, who turned down overtures from other schools following the 2011 season but did not officially sign an extension until June 2012, keeping him at Notre Dame through the 2021-22 season.

Swarbrick extended Kelly's contract for two more years after the 2011 season, locking him up through the 2016 season.

Kelly interview with the Philadelphia Eagles days after Notre Dame's Jan. 7 loss to Alabama in the Discover BCS National Championship but opted to stay with the Irish.

Brian Kelly met with this team Sunday night to address what has been anything but a slow offseason since Notre Dame's Jan. 7 loss to Alabama in the Discover BCS National Championship.

What he told them, though, was apparently the same thing he told reporters Tuesday morning during a half-hour conference call: The coach is at Notre Dame to stay, and coaching in the NFL is not something he wants to do.

"I'm not going to get into the specifics of everything, but here's what I can tell you: The interview, so to speak, as people have talked about, was really a discussion that I had with Jeff Lurie of the Philadelphia Eagles and his leadership team," Kelly said. "I will tell you that the discussion was more about intrigue on my part. I had obviously always been in the college game, really did not have a good grasp of the NFL setup, and so for me, my head said, 'Let's be more informed as it relates to the NFL.'

"But my heart is in college football and with Notre Dame. So I think the recruits, I tell them up front that I'm committed to Notre Dame, flattered that the NFL would want me to be one of their coaches, but it's just, it's not what I want to do. I want to be a college football coach and really just was really happy and flushed that the Eagles would give me the opportunity to sit down and talk to them. Very much appreciate Jeff Lurie for the opportunity. But as I said, it's more intrigue than it was an interest on my part."

Kelly said the Eagles contacted Irish athletic director Jack Swarbrick about their opening shortly after firing Andy Reid, with Swarbrick and Kelly agreeing that, if there were to be any contact with the organization, it would not come until after the title game.

Philadelphia and Kelly spoke the day after the title game, and Kelly did not announce his intentions to stay at Notre Dame until four days later, by which point four-star linebacker Alex Anzalone (Wyomissing, Pa./Wyomissing) had decommitted from the Irish and enrolled early at Florida.

Kelly expressed some regret with how he handled the situation publicly.

"If there was anything I would've done differently, it would've been to close that timeline relative to my interview and coming out with a statement," he said. "I was on vacation with my wife. We were away. We weren't watching TV. But I should've been more sensitive to the fact that there was this time period that had been going on and released a statement much sooner."

As it relates to a contract extension and securing the long-term future of Notre Dame football, Kelly said he has been in touch with Swarbrick since Dec. 6, with both seeing eye-to-eye in desiring the extended consistency of a program that has upward of 17 starters returning from an undefeated regular season.

Part of the NFL dalliance, Kelly said, was so that he can avoid similar situations in future years.

Future winning years.

"I just didn't know anything about it, really," Kelly said. "Again, as I said, college is all that I've been involved in. I really didn't understand the NFL process, the game, who was involved in the day-to-day operations of selecting the team, all those things. And quite frankly I wanted to answer those so I wouldn't have to go through this, because we're going to win again next year. There's probably going to be teams that are going to have an interest in coaching in the NFL, and I want to be able to tell them definitively that I want to coach in college.

"And the interview was more about, I wanted that information. So it was easy for me to make a decision on being here in the college game. I love Notre Dame. I love the college game. But I think the intrigue was more of just finding out about it, so it's now easy for me to say no."

Thanks to those who stopped by today's Notre Dame chat after a two-week absence. There was plenty of catching up to do, and plenty of catching up got done. You can read it all here.

Some highlights:

• Justin Shippy (Fort Wayne): Do you have a feel for who will/will not be granted 5th years?
• Matt Fortuna (2:06 PM): No concrete info but logic says Zack Martin, Dan Fox, Carlo Calabrese and Chris Watt will be back, barring anything unforeseen.

• Matt Traylor (Fort Wayne, IN): With a couple key loses on defense do you see improvement or a decline on that side of the ball next season?
• Matt Fortuna (2:08 PM): Title-game notwithstanding, it's hard to do much better than the No. 1 scoring defense in the regular season. That said, there are upwards of eight starters returning, Stephon Tuitt and Louis Nix should only be better and the secondary will have much more experience and depth. I think the D will be very, very good, but we need to see if similar type of leaders can emerge to take this group to the next step, like last year's.

• Brad (Benton): Hey Matt. I was just looking over the schedule for next year and is it safe to say that based on how some teams improved (i.e. Mich and ASU) this schedule seems even harder than last years?
• Matt Fortuna (2:10 PM): Brad, these things are always tricky. Last year's slate looked incredibly daunting from the outset. While it was still a very good schedule -- and the Irish deserve a lot of credit for scheduling that tough -- MSU and USC were massive disappointments, and Oklahoma and Michigan underachieved, to name a few. The two games that jump out to me immediately when looking at the 2013 slate are the Michigan and Stanford ones, as they are both on the road and the latter figures to be in the national title conversation. Then again, we've been wrong before when it comes to end of season Pac-12 rivals and title talk, haven't we?

• Brad (Stilson, GA): How do we go from "We're Back!" to getting thumped in the MNCG and our star linebacker's phone calls with a dude? Can we please start over next season or will this pall still be hanging over us?
• Matt Fortuna (2:22 PM): It's Notre Dame football, Brad. Surely something else crazy will happen between now and the end of August, no? That title game certainly feels like a lot more than 17 days ago, I'll say that much.

• Tom (Louisville, KY): Matt, are you hearing of any changes they plan on making to our strength and conditioning program? Do you think we will try to look more like Alabama in the future ?
• Matt Fortuna (2:59 PM): Tom, that's been the plan all along. Let's remember just how short these same players were coming up a year or two ago. Paul Longo and his staff have done wonders, and the fact they got to the title game in three years -- a year ahead of Jack Swarbrick's expected timeframe -- is a testament to all of that. Swarbrick said after that game that nothing he saw that night in Miami changes his feelings as it relates to the direction of the program, and I have to agree with him. While the Bama loss was humiliating at the time, it doesn't ruin what has been remarkable progress for a program many thought would never reach that stage again.

SOUTH BEND, Ind. -- Last spring, John Pepelnjak was engaged in a late-night session of "Madden NFL" on Xbox 360 with his friend Manti Te'o in Te'o's first-floor Dillon Hall dorm room. In the final game of a three-game series, Te'o received a phone call he had been anxiously awaiting.

A woman Te'o had met online, who went by the name Lennay Kekua, had been in a car accident just a few days earlier, on April 28. The voices on the other line, her purported brothers, were updating Te'o on her condition, according to Pepelnjak.

Te'o kept Pepelnjak apprised of some of the details of the conversation during several pauses, including whom he was talking to.

"That phone call made it clear to me how much Lennay meant to him," Pepelnjak told ESPN.com in a statement. "Everything he said and every emotion he expressed were painfully authentic."

As the Te'o saga has continued to unfold, and incidents such as the car accident and several others have been proven false, a number of Te'o's allies on Notre Dame's campus stepped forward publicly Saturday, including Pepelnjak. They appear to validate Te'o's version of events as he described them Friday night during a 2½-hour interview with ESPN's Jeremy Schaap, his first public statements after the revelation on Wednesday that the girl the world had come to know as Lennay Kekua does not exist.

"I'd have been more suspicious if he said 'I was really wary of this all along,'" Fighting Irish athletic director Jack Swarbrick told ESPN's Mark Schwarz on Saturday, referring to Te'o's trusting nature. "It's not who he is. He's the only guy on the team who knows whether a student manager is having trouble in calculus."

To read the of Matt Fortuna's story, click here.