Filed Under » Notre Dame Fighting Irish

Manti Te'o's fake dead girlfriend is not the only hoax rocking the Notre Dame football program today. The program's 2013 recruiting class — currently ranked 3rd by ESPN and 4th by Scout — is also not real.

"This is incredibly embarrassing to talk about, but over an extended period of time, I developed an emotional relationship with recruits I met online," said head coach Brian Kelly. "We maintained what I thought to be an authentic relationship by communicating frequently online and on the phone, and I grew to care deeply about them. To realize that I was the victim of what was apparently someone's sick joke and constant lies was, and is, painful and humiliating."

The hoax leaves Notre Dame without a single recruit for 2013, a development that will greatly impact the depth and future of the program.

"I smelled something fishy months ago," said one recruiting expert. "Notre Dame had a good season, but it was still their first good season in decades. There was no reason they should have been getting recruits of that level over one good season. Still, though, I didn't expect anything like this."

Kelly reportedly began receiving recruiting tapes from supposed high school stars in the late summer. He was wowed by what he saw and followed up with the "recruits," who quickly committed to Notre Dame. It turns out the highlights were of other players and that all the names were fictional. Investigators believe the hoax was perpetrated by a man in Tuscaloosa, Ala., named Nick.

Agents from Interpol and the FBI were assisted by Tuscaloosa, Ala., police today in apprehending "Skeeter" Ray Fisher, a Tuscaloosa resident and Alabama Crimson Tide fan who had called into the Paul Finebaum's radio show on Monday and claimed he poisoned Pope Benedict XVI.

"Mr. Fisher admitted to poisoning the pontiff in a phone call to a popular sports radio program in the South," said the lead FBI agent on the case, Mike Townsend. "He said it was 'to do to the head Notre Dame guy what Alabama is going to do to Notre Dame on the field.' That's a paraphrase. He spoke in a heavy Southern accent that required us to get an interpreter to determine exactly what was said. All that was clear to me was when he said 'Roll damn Tide.'"

Law enforcement officials are now interrogating Fisher, a part-time raccoon groomer, about his poisoning claims. Vatican officials were contacted to report the poisoning and check on the state of the Pope.

"We aren't sure yet if he has been poisoned or what the effects might be," said a Vatican spokesman. "He's really old. It's hard to tell what could be the result of poison and what could be just what comes with being almost 86 years old. He seems pale and frail. Is that cause for alarm? He looked that way yesterday, too, and the day before that. I guess we'll just wait and see."

Investigators are hopeful that Fisher, who has a tattoo of Bear Bryant's face over top of his own face, did not actually poison the leader of the Catholic church.

The Alabama Crimson Tide defeated Notre Dame on Monday night in the BCS title game, somehow routing the No. 1 ranked team in all the land by four touchdowns.

"We knew that they were Notre Dame and that they were No. 1, but we tried not to let that intimidate us," said Alabama running back Eddie Lacy, who ran for, like, 37 yards per carry. "We believed we could win even if no one else did."

Alabama head coach Nick Saban said he played up the Tide's underdog status in the weeks before the title game.

"My team saw Notre Dame's No. 1 ranking. They saw what they did to teams like Purdue and Pitt," said Saban. "I saw the concern on their faces. But we pulled together, dug down deep and somehow made it work. I don't know if we could beat Notre Dame more than once if we played them 10 times, but that one time happened tonight."