I hear what you’re saying, but NU even does it differently when recruiting committed players. NU will not stay in constant contact with players committed elsewhere, instead simply making a single call (typically to the player’s coach first) to gauge interest if anything has changed; other schools will actively recruit committed players right up to signing day. Quite frankly I think Fitz could probably get some utility out of “playing the game” a little more, but doubt we will see him fundamentally change his philosophy all that much.
And that’s to say nothing of how some programs treat their own commitments. I’ve got stories about coaches refusing commitments from players literally holding their offer letter, slow playing sending along NLI forms in hopes that a kid gets the message, etc. Schools won’t typically just straight up tell a kid “hey, you no longer have a scholarship here” because that’s some terrible PR; it’s more often a long series of events (such as cutting off all contact, slow playing admissions, etc.) until it gets to the point where the kid TECHNICALLY decommitted, but it’s also pretty clear that it was of the school’s volition.
It mostly sucks that Millen, like Deuce Wallace before him, seems to have used NU as a “place holder” at the most important position on the field for which recruiting is becoming more and more accelerated. Whereas it’s relatively easy to recover from, for instance, a WR or DE decommit, it is much MUCH harder to recover from a QB decommit. We seem to have some legitimate candidates, but I won’t feel great until one of those guys is committed (and even then until they actually sign).