How Rumors Get Started: An Example

by dishingoutdimes on Dec 11, 2010 4:04 PM CST in Oklahoma Sooners Football

I was a little alarmed when I saw a headline pass into my RSS feed that said "Report: Stoops Finalizing Contract With Florida". It turns out that this was on Yahoo Sports' website, by way of NationalFootballPost.com, which lends it a bit more credibility. However, if you read the article it says:

But as of late Saturday morning, GatorCountry.com was reporting that Stoops is finalizing a contract to succeed Urban Meyer as the face of the Florida program.

According to the report, Stoops is negotiating with athletic director Jeremy Foley and the Gators administration, with former quarterback Kerwin Bell possibly becoming the team’s offensive coordinator.

It turns out that the link they provide in the article to this "report" from GatorCountry.com takes you to a message board called the "Swamp Gas Forums". You need a membership to check it out, but as far as I can tell this "report" was some guy bloviating on a message board. Why?

If you go to the actual GatorCountry.com homepage, it looks like a legit website. It even says "official ESPN affiliate" at the top. And yet, for such a HUGE STORY, there is no such headline on their home page. Hmm, I wonder why that is?

Just to be thorough, I checked Alligator Army, the SBNation Florida blog and there was no such story on there either. And I checked out Soonerfans.com, a message board where people are likely to be far more panicky about a story like this. There actually is a 4-page thread about it but nobody seems to have any sort of evidence except this:

According to a florida booster Florida is offering stoops like 6 million a year to come to florida

Which, of course, is not really evidence at all. In an interesting note, some ambitious Gator fan had changed the Wikipedia page to read Bob Stoops' university as Florida, but now I see a prankster has changed it to the "University of Greenland":

People really need to start sourcing their information. Saying "GatorCountry.com is reporting" is not the same as saying "some random dude named TebowIZmahHERO is reporting". Thanks to this, Sooner fans are going to have to put up with another round of coaching job rumors and innuendos.

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And so I go looking for another Gators Message Board and find this on Gatorenvy.com:

If anyone was wondering, my sports journalist buddy is telling me that the most credible buzz that he has heard so far is for Chris Petersen. Allegedly him and Foley are just working out details at the moment. So that’s the word on the street as far as I know. The order of the list on Foley’s desk was allegedly Stoops first and he turned it down. So then Foley went after Petersen. Petersen is interested. But if things fall through then Mullen is the backup.

Some guy posted that. Maybe we should make a story that says “Gatorenvy.com reports Chris Petersen in negotiations to become Florida coach”??

Sorry, but these sorts of unsubstantiated rumors make me annoyed.

"Coach Gundy, why was Oklahoma able to march right down the field against you?" --Erin Andrews

by dishingoutdimes on Dec 11, 2010 1:19 PM CST reply actions

And FYI

the rumor is now available on ESPN Insider. (Sigh)

"Coach Gundy, why was Oklahoma able to march right down the field against you?" --Erin Andrews

by dishingoutdimes on Dec 11, 2010 1:23 PM CST reply actions

They Wish

they wish they could get the best but they can’t.

by cotton swift on Dec 11, 2010 1:31 PM CST reply actions

well if this rumor turns out to be true, I'll give them their due

but if it turns out to be false, then I’m going to go on a rant. To say someone is “finalizing a contract”, you better be pretty darn SURE that it’s happening.

"Coach Gundy, why was Oklahoma able to march right down the field against you?" --Erin Andrews

by dishingoutdimes on Dec 11, 2010 1:35 PM CST up reply actions

i live in florida and got cut off by a jeep with a "gators" sticker on the window,

I then said aloud, “Yet another reason to hate florida gators.” my wife who was sitting in the passenger seat asked, Chris, are you serious, and i just looked at her with a straight face and said…………………yes……………………………then looked back at the road

by soonernation9 on Dec 11, 2010 1:45 PM CST reply actions