Auburn’s confidential recruiting evaluations are now at the center of a felony investigation.
In July, an email signed “Don Julio” landed in the inboxes of football staffers at rival programs, carrying a dozen attachments containing material from Alex Golesh’s first Auburn recruiting operation. Police accuse former player personnel scouting assistant David Rudolph Jenrath, 24, of sending the information. One competitor returned the material to Auburn, and police say their investigation identified Jenrath as the “person of interest”. CBS Sports sources say the investigation lasted at least two months before Jenrath turned himself in on Sept. 28 on felony charges of theft of trade secrets and computer tampering.
Ten attachments contained evaluations of prospects in the 2027, 2028, and 2029 classes, FootballScoop reported. CBS Sports described an internal personnel manual, a grading scale, and an organizational chart showing how a prospect reaches Golesh. If you work at a rival school, finding out whom Auburn has offered takes a phone call, but its private opinion of those players gives you a peek at a competitor’s hand. Whether the law protects those judgments like an NFL draft board is now the business question behind the criminal case.
What Auburn Says Left the Building
Jenrath’s time at Auburn straddled a coaching change. Auburn payroll records show five payments totaling $535 between September and December 2025, during Hugh Freeze’s final season, Knox News reported. CBS sources say Golesh’s staff retained him in January and dismissed him in spring; his LinkedIn profile listed work through June. He subsequently enrolled at Tennessee, which told Knox News he never worked for its athletics department. His enrollment provides no evidence of Tennessee’s involvement, although it gave the arrest an awkward backdrop as Auburn prepared to play the Volunteers on Oct. 3.
Charging documents allege that Jenrath “obtained and/or retained confidential, proprietary information” while employed at Auburn. The computer tampering allegation says he acted “with the intent to harass Auburn University Athletics by disclosing trade secrets of Auburn University Athletics to their opponents.” (The allegations remain unproven). Auburn declined to comment, leaving its reasons for pursuing a police case publicly unexplained. However, the reported distribution to competitors helps explain the commercial concern: once evaluations leave a program, an internal disciplinary decision cannot recover every copy or undo what rivals learn.
Inside the Fight Over What Counts as a Secret
Prosecutors still have to show why these files qualify. Alabama’s criminal statute covers valuable scientific or technical information, designs, processes, procedures, formulas, or improvements whose owner takes measures to restrict access to selected people for limited purposes. It criminalizes knowingly stealing, copying, or transmitting a qualifying secret without the owner’s effective consent. In other words, Auburn’s use of a confidential label settles very little; prosecutors must establish the legal elements beyond a reasonable doubt.
One recipient disputes the premise. “Your high school slash JUCO evaluation pipeline and how it gets from the intern to the head coach is not confidential information,” a source told CBS Sports.
The skepticism is understandable when recruits announce offers and recruiting services track schools’ interest. But a familiar workflow does not necessarily reveal the private judgments moving through it, which makes the grading sheet worth a closer look.
CBS reported that Auburn’s top category, “no-brainers,” directs coaches to have “no hesitation in taking his commitment regardless of roster spots. All hands on deck recruiting. Little to no questions on traits/character. Will be one of the best players in college football.” At the bottom, “rejects” describes a “player not good enough to help us win. Documented off the field issues/concerns. Lacks work ethic, coachability, and/or competitiveness. Multiple medical issues that cause durability concerns.” Such assessments could help a rival understand where Auburn will compete hardest and which prospects it has quietly ruled out.
There is useful comparison here in the United States v. Nosal (case), involving executive recruiter Korn/Ferry. In 2016, a federal appeals court upheld trade secret convictions involving information from its restricted Searcher database. The firm invested years in compiling and organizing information, then guarded access. Publicly available ingredients could form a valuable private collection. Although that federal ruling does not decide an Alabama prosecution, it just helps us understand why calling recruiting information commonplace cannot settle this case either.
Auburn’s safeguards therefore deserve scrutiny: who could download evaluations, what confidentiality rules applied, and when departing staff lost access. Golesh addressed security on Sept. 30 while emphasizing preparation for Tennessee. “When the original situation came up, obviously had to make sure we dotted our i’s and crossed our t’s, but we have it in place,” he told reporters. His assurance leaves the details of those protections unresolved in the public account, and those details could be crucial to proving the files qualify for legal protection.
College Football Built a Front Office, Then Had to Guard it
The money explains why programs have reason to protect their scouting work. The College Sports Commission recorded $1.77 billion in revenue-sharing payments during the 2025-26 season. Evaluations help inform recruiting priorities and roster spending, so there is cash riding on decisions about which players to pursue. A private grade can steer a school toward one prospect and away from another before anyone discusses a contract. Knox News sources say the leaked material did not include NIL or revenue sharing information; the financial connection lies in how schools use scouting judgments to build their teams.
Auburn invests heavily in finding those players. Its NCAA financial reports show football recruiting expenses of roughly $2.3 million in fiscal 2025, up from $1.4 million in 2024, AL.com reported. However, this predates Golesh’s arrival. But the figures show the cost of sustaining a recruiting operation, without establishing a dollar value for the disputed files. Receiving the finished evaluations could benefit from work Auburn paid to produce.
Golesh’s staff structure shows how specialized that work has become. General manager Andrew Warsaw oversees off-field administration and staff; Alex Faga directs player personnel and scouting, while Harding Harper III leads recruiting. Dividing responsibilities helps move a prospect from an initial review toward a coaching decision. It also creates several points where a program must decide who needs access and who can pass information along.
Northwestern offers a practical response. In June, it hired John Lintner as assistant director of football video and data security, a role it called the first of its kind in the Power Four. He works with university IT to protect confidential football information. “His background in video operations and data security gives us a real edge in building a secure, efficient, and forward-thinking operation,” coach David Braun said. Assigning someone that kind of responsibility makes protection part of the daily operation. Such safeguards also address a familiar problem: information can outlast the staff members originally trusted with it.
College football also has a warning from Wakeyleaks in 2016, when Wake Forest’s investigation found broadcaster Tommy Elrod provided or attempted to provide confidential game preparations to opponents over multiple seasons. Auburn’s disputed files extend into the 2029 recruiting class, potentially exposing decisions about teams still being assembled.
At his December introduction, Golesh promised, “We’re going to outwork, outthink and out-process people across the entire country.” Now the case turns partly on whether Auburn protected the product of that work well enough for it to qualify as a trade s
