Commitment confusion

 Remember a couple days ago, when the Blob Blobbed about Kirk Ferentz and Pat Fitzgerald complaining that college football had become a lunatic's romper room?

They were talking about the "rules" governing NILs, which amount to no rules at all. But that's not what sets the Blob to shaking its bony fist at clouds and what-not.

It's this business about recruits committing to schools, and then de-committing. 

Latest example is the current top recruit in the 2023 class, quarterback Malachi Nelson from Los Alamitos, Calif. Nelson originally committed to Oklahoma, then de-committed when Lincoln Riley left Norman for USC and re-committed to USC.

Know what he's doing this weekend?

He's visiting Texas A&M.

So here's a kid who was committed, and then wasn't, and then was, and now ... well, who knows? This week USC; next week, maybe, Texas A&M. By the time the wheel stops spinning, he could wind up in South Bend.

(No, not really. Calm down, Domers.)

Anyway, the Blob has a cranky old English minor's lament about this. Which is, why do we say a recruit has committed somewhere when he actually hasn't? If you de-commit, doesn't that mean you weren't "committed" in the first place?  

Maybe I'm over-thinking this, the way some English majors/minors overthink the Oxford comma (Don't get me started on that). But in the interests of accuracy, shouldn't we use different terminology these days when a kid declares his college choice early?

Something like, I don't know, "Jon Moxon has tentatively announced he will play college football for Brown University." Or, "Billy Bob is a pre-signing date Southwest Northern Texas State Tech recruit."

"Wow, you really are overthinking this," you're saying now. 

Just what I do.