Coaches' jobs can depend on their listening skills. During Don James' coaching tenure, he repeatedly made a behavioral point to his players. Partly, the tactic was a bluff to scare players into compliance. But it was true often enough that the miscreant players were astonished the old coach was so plugged in. That's the way it works at every big-time program.
Some whisperers have other agendas.
They sometimes exaggerate, or make up lies, to gain revenge against a player against whom they are otherwise helpless. But in this case, if the UW and the prosecutor are believed, the traditional back channel failed Neuheisel. If that's not true, then Neuheisel knew something but said nothing in order to keep an important player around for what became a Rose Bowl season. Either way, Neuheisel looks bad. The same might be said for police and prosecutors, particularly in context with the most recent previous UW football tangle with the law, the Jerramy Stevens case.