iirc admiral rickover showed that the ship suffered an internal explosion.
The investigation of 1911 was able to examine the exposed wreck using a coffer dam. They came to the conclusion that the explosion was external. Rickover's book was written in 1976 and the experts he consulted concluded that spontaneous combustion in the coal bunker caused the explosion. Given that fires in the coal bunkers of ships of that era were relatively common (USS Olympia and USS Indiana had them) and never, to my knowledge, resulted in the explosion of a ship, Rickover's conclusion seems to be speculative at best.
The Destruction of USS Maine