Nothing might equal the embarrassment Te'o has brought on the Irish community.
CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Their faces were a map of Notre Dame's fan base -- a red-haired guy with a brogue, a dark-skinned guy with the cities of New Jersey in his voice, a guy sneaking a cigarette before boarding the rent-a-car bus at O'Hare Field in Chicago who looked like he would know his way around Slavic Village.
This was the morning after Notre Dame beat Wake Forest, while Kansas State and Oregon had lost the night before. Ohio State had beaten Wisconsin in Madison in overtime the same night. It looked like the Notre Dame fans, in their blue and gold jackets and sweatshirts and green hats, had done little but celebrate the victory, although one of them must've been the designated driver.
I had driven to Rockford, Ill., an hour from Chicago, immediately after the Buckeyes' game. Like the Irish fans, I was working on short sleep as we boarded the bus to catch our 9 a.m. flights.
They were crating unopened six-packs of Diet Coke onto the bus. One guy was chug-a-lugging one from a pack he had ripped open.
"No. 1, baby!" the Irish-looking guy said, correctly anticipating the polls later in the day.
"Congratulations," I said.
"Football fan?" he said.
"Reporter. I write columns about Ohio State for the Cleveland Plain Dealer."
"You saw a better game, but we have a better team," one of the Irish fans said.
"That could be true," I said. "All I know is that Notre Dame this year reminds me of Ohio State in 2002, the last time they won it all."
We discussed that on the five-minute ride to the terminal -- the defensive orientation of that Buckeye team and this Fighting Irish one; the way they both played two overtime games, the way the Buckeyes brought pride back to a Midwestern university that had gone a long time without a national championship; the way a great Southern power, Miami then, Alabama now, barred the path to the championship.
"I hope you're right in your analogies, columnist," the oldest guy said as they got off before me.
This columnist was never one of those guys who begrudged Notre Dame its spot in the national championship game against Alabama. I thought it was good for college football for the Irish to be a factor again. I thought they had a chance. On that, hoo-boy, was I ever wrong.
The difference between ND then and OSU in 2002 was that the Buckeye defenders, especially Chris Gamble, could run. After Alabama's 42-14 rout, I thought Notre Dame linebacker Manti Te'o had had one of the most ineffective big-game performances I had ever seen. I thought of those guys at O'Hare briefly after Alabama dismantled Notre Dame. They had to be crushed.
Te'o had finished second on my ballot, and on ballots nationwide, in the Heisman Trophy voting because he played middle linebacker for an undefeated Notre Dame team and because of his moving personal history of tragedy.
Now we know Te'o's story about his dead girlfriend was a complete fraud. The media members who wrote about it have a black eye. The school has a black eye. Gerry Faust, the former Notre Dame and Akron coach, whose pride in the Irish I wrote about this season has to be stunned.
There were a lot of one-liners about Te'o after the BCS Championship Game. There will be a lot more now -- about the lie he lived, about whether it is even remotely possible he could have been duped, about the Notre Dame myth-making factory, about a complacent media that was suckered.
But everyone wants to buy into a story like Te'o's. We know now that Irish legend George Gipp was in the pool halls as much as the classrooms. We know that Paul Hornung's Heisman at the expense of Johnny Majors in 1956 was an injustice. But nothing might equal the embarrassment Te'o has brought on the Irish community.
I think the boys who were on the bus are drinking more than Diet Coke tonight.