Opinion | Right field: Te'o has no one to blame but himself

Manti Te'o - insert joke here. A little more than one month after finishing a close second in the voting for the Heisman trophy, the most prestigious individual award in all of American sports, Notre Dame linebacker Manti Te'o has become a national punch line.

For those of you who don't have electricity, Te'o has either been ensnared in or has perpetuated one of the most bizarre hoaxes in the history of sports.

When the female love of Te'o's life turned out to be nothing more than a cunning and calculating online male prankster, the revelation landed like a bombshell.

In the past few days, it has now emerged that the same person who perpetuated the hoax on Te'o also used this fictional female persona to fool at least six other people.

The difference between those six and Te'o though is that none of them dedicated an inspirational victory over Michigan State in September to his girlfriend and grandmother, who had both apparently died earlier in the day, thereby becoming the most heartwarming of all sporting stories this past year.

"I couldn't do without the support of my family and my girlfriend's family," he said in an emotional postgame interview. "I miss them. I miss them. But I know that I'll see them again one day."

In an interview last week with Katie Couric, Te'o admitted that when he discovered in December it was all a hoax, he felt he had no other option than to perpetuate the lie to avoid the requisite humiliation, particularly, as his undefeated team was preparing to play for the national championship in a few weeks' time.