A former Auburn football staffer is in jail this week on felony charges that he stole the program’s trade secrets and sent confidential recruiting information to competing schools — a development that landed four days before the Tigers visit Tennessee.
David Rudolph Jenrath, 24, of Franklin, Tennessee, turned himself in to the Auburn Police Department on Monday, Sept. 28, and was booked into the Lee County Jail on $15,000 bond. He is charged with theft of trade secrets and computer tampering, both felonies.
Police say the case originated from a report at the 300 block of South Donahue Drive, the address of the Auburn Athletics Department, that sensitive information had been taken and distributed to competitors. One of those competitors received the material and turned it back over to Auburn. Investigators identified Jenrath as the suspect and obtained warrants.
Charging documents allege that while employed by Auburn, Jenrath retained confidential athletics information and transmitted those trade secrets without consent. The computer-tampering charge accuses him of disclosing, using, controlling or taking computer programs and data “with the intent to harass Auburn University Athletics by disclosing trade secrets of Auburn University Athletics to their opponents.”
Auburn declined comment through an athletic department spokesperson.
Jenrath’s LinkedIn profile lists him as a Player Personnel Scouting Assistant at Auburn from January 2026 through June 2026, with a focus on running backs and special teams. His listed duties included evaluating high school and transfer-portal prospects, preparing scouting reports and recruiting summaries, assisting with opponent scouting, and maintaining recruiting databases.
The same profile now identifies him as a student in sports analytics (also described as applied artificial intelligence/sports analytics) at the University of Tennessee. He additionally describes himself as a software developer and a product tester for HOKA.
The timing is hard to miss. No. 17 Tennessee hosts Auburn on Saturday, Oct. 3, at Neyland Stadium. Auburn head coach Alex Golesh is a former Tennessee offensive coordinator; several current Tigers staffers also have Vols ties. Jenrath’s arrest became public on the same week that game week began.
Reporting so far has not named the specific schools that received the material, the exact contents of the files, or whether any program used the information. Police have only said competitors received it and returned it.
College football programs treat internal recruiting boards, prospect evaluations, portal rankings, and scouting databases as competitive assets. In the NIL and portal era those files are more valuable, and more portable than ever. Personnel staffers have access to that information every day. When someone leaves a program, the legal and practical question is always the same: what did they take with them?
Jenrath worked only six months on the Plains, arriving after Golesh was hired and departing in June. Three months later he is facing felony charges in the city where he used to work, on the week Auburn plays the school where he now studies.
FootballScoop will update this story as additional information become available.