When you say "Let's quash the rumor stuff and if it comes out, we'll all know!", you're assuming Nick Saban would publicly say "[insert player name] decided to transfer from Alabama because he got pushed down the pecking order after making some dumb decisions, such as ________, ___________, and __________." That's not happening. Therefore, we have three options: wait on Saban to say something, believe everything we read from other fans on TF, or do our own research to find what is said on various sites to get a better grasp of things. If one "rumor" is on numerous sites, we can begin to believe it's more than just a rumor.
As I said above, do your own research on the various message boards. You can figure out what posters are just repeating what they find on other sites. Also, people appear to be "wannabe insiders" because they may have an account at TI, BOL, Rivals, Scout or other paid-sites but can't copy and paste what they read on those sites to TF. To avoid any issues, those posters make vague references to what they read on those sites.
Some folks do have sources, but they don't post much.