Not to do the sports blogger thing of citing a scene from The Wire, but let's be honest here -- that's pretty much the extent of our knowledge regarding the arts of snitching. You remember the scene in which we learn if you ever seen interacting with the police, you'd better end up being arrested, because otherwise it's apparent you've ... interacted with the police?
The NCAA isn't the police, and college football isn't Baltimore, but the principle still applies. Purdue Boilermakers QB Robert Marve was implicated in the Miami Hurricanes' Nevin Shapiro scandal, but was one of the many players almost immediately declared eligible shortly after the Charles Robinson report broke. The math adds up, and the NCAA confirms the math to CBS Sports*.
Which, whatever. It's fun to pretend sports are as bound by the same life-and-death rules as the streets, but if Marve didn't do anything wrong himself, he shouldn't be ostracized for doing what's best for himself and his team.
Besides, you'd have to assume Miami fans are going to remember only one primary snitch from this whole episode anyway:
* The highlight of that CBS Sports article, by the way: when NCAA vice president of enforcement Julie Roe Lach acknowledges recruits are freed by the specter of red tape to get extraordinarily buck throughout the nation:
Roe Lach admitted there could be an opening "if the student-athlete is savvy in gaming the system and being an open party to recruiting violations." But she countered that the resulting paperwork from chasing every recruiting violation at every school wouldn't exactly enhance the NCAA's image.
"It almost would be a bureaucratic mess if all those violations are going to affect a prospect's eligibility at every school," Roe Lach said.