We all know the rivalry between Alabama and Auburn can get somewhat bitter at times. However, what started as a healthy, competitive rivalry might have recently hit a new low. I recently received the following in an email that is supposedly authored by an Auburn internet poster at autigers.com forums (which is affiliated with Scout.com):

AU85Grad:
Not sure how I am supposed to say all this but I have been advised that I needed to set the story straight given the past few weeks of revelations. The history of the rumors about the gumps and Gadsden:

1) This started when JH went to bammer at the last minute instead of AU. A coach of his had ensured AU staff that he was headed to AU and not bammer. He was aware of what AU had offered JH and his mother stuff and possibly knew that JH mom had taped AU's offer. He still felt AU was his choice. JH put on the bammer hat and the **** hit the fan at AU. Our staff called the coach and asked him what happened and he said he did not know but would have to guess that bammer "countered" AU's offer. He never said he knew that bammer had cheated but that he guessed that took place. After this, he asked JH why he went to bammer and he said that if he went to AU he thought his eligibility might have been revoked if the NCAA found out about AU's offer. JH said bammer and MSST both played it straight with him and his mom and that is why he went to bammer.

2) This incident led the AU staff to believe that they lost out on the bidding for JH and they told people that bammer had cheated. At this point, the coach could not get the corrected story out there fast enough. Irontiger knows this coach and was told the first story about how the coach thought bammer cheated. Later, irontiger was told that bammer did not commit infractions but he had already started his own rumors and his reputation grew as well as his imagination.

3) Irontiger then brought in a few of us to help spread the rumors- myself (ITAT name withheld) sherpa88, troopT and a few others and then koury. I dropped out about three months ago when I found out they had hired a PI that might have broken some laws and when I confronted iron about it he said they would send the information anonymously and no one could trace it back to him. The problem is his big mouth and he could not stop talking about it - then everyone found out about operation red dog and who was in it. After I dropped out koury joined the inside board back in March of this year as the repeat and sounding board of irontiger. The plan was simple: irontiger would start the thread and a few of us would join in and then someone would come back and verify everything irontiger has said was truthful- that is koury's job now.

4) During the past 16 months this has been going on. The MO was to stay the same in every area. Charge that recruits got new cars- Mobile was escalades and Gadsden was chargers. Start new rumors along the way about booster infractions, enticements and other benefits as much as we can. The most effective thing that irontiger came up with was that when any bammer player does something immediately tie it to an infraction. If julio and mark goes fishing a booster paid for it- it was really simple. If KK got a car immediately say a booster paid for it even though in this case they knew for sure it came from his mothers college fund for him.

Now everyone knows how this happened. Now to the why.

We all knew that CTT and staff were not going to be effective against Miles, Saban, Richt and Meyer. We had to negate one of them and the easiest one was to hit Saban. We choose him due to his proximity and volatility of our rivalry with bammer. We all really thought CNS was cheating a little (secondary type stuff)and thought if we can keep enough rumors churning we could get the NCAA to investigate or at the least keep a few recruits away from bammer. Irontiger knew this would work and said, "the idiot masses on ITAT will believe any rumor we put out about bammer because they want to believe it"! I was skeptical until I saw the masses believing every rumor even as our gang accidentally got the rumors incorrect many times- types of cars, colors and amounts of cash. Each time we told the rumor it seemed to grow and our fanbase kept believing every one of them until Michael14 and Austudent22 caught on to us and called us out for it.

You will see more revelations about this coming from multiple boards as they have started figuring out that 4-5 posters on ITAT started all these rumors. Once it went so far I told irontiger that coaches at these schools were being implicated as cheaters from the AU fanbase and that we should call it off and he said those ******* coaches were bammers and he did not care if they got called cheaters. I told him that they weren't cheaters and that they had started calling into AU's athletic department complaining about. When the PIs and reporters showed up and questioned these high school coaches about cheating for bammer they wrote AU off. This really hit the fan around March of 2009 and that is when I left irons group. I know for a fact that irons rumors cost us 2 recruits last year (one four star and one 5 star) because the coaches at there school were called cheaters by the rumors started on ITAT. Our 2009 recruiting efforts were dramatically hurt by these rumors and 2010 is looking just as bad for instate recruits.

I stayed on the fringe until last week when the PTB at AU sent word to me and irontiger that it had to stop. Irontioger stopped for a day or so and then started rehashing it all over again. He has troopT and koury doing the heavy posting now and he just "supports" the rumors instead of "initiating" them. If our own posters knew just how stupid irontiger said they were they would not follow his rumors any more.


Now, I have completed the task I was advised to do. Once PF gets to the bottom of this and the package that iron put together it will turn litigious.

 

I don't usually give any weight to this type of internet foolery, but this email also came with accusations detailing how Auburn fans have been calling prospective UA recruits posing as UA Boosters and offering them money, incentives, etc. to come to UA. Also, they have reportedly posed as NCAA investigators and called UA recruits attempting to learn of some wrongdoing on UA's behalf. If true, this is the lowest a fanbase can go, not to mention the legal consequences for those involved.

Disclaimer: This may all be a load of BS, take it all with a grain of salt. I hope all of this is cleared up soon so we can get down to what really matters: the game played on the field. Oh, and Roll Tide!