I don't know anything about this recruit, nor do I know anything about college recruiting.
I lead large scale organizational change and transformation projects and I do know that making assessments of a program involves a series of different types of conversations (e.g., where would I fit, does it maximize my likelihood for results, what am I looking for, what are the pros of joining, what are the cons of joining, what would be expected of me, what are my other options etc.) than being committed to a program (What do I do to be successful, how can I improve myself to best fit the system, how do I better learn my role, etc.).
I can say unequivocally, that a person that engages in the first set of conversations after they have already committed and begun participating in the second set of conversations (am I sure I want to be here, maybe I made the wrong choice) are almost certain to fail and/or bring those conversations to others in the system. Usually, those people are fired immediately.
I can't say what happened with Childress (or that I would do the same thing) and I don't know about college football recruiting. I can say, unequivocally that when I lead change events, I am very sensitive to fragility of the new culture and identity and I would ask people to leave if they gave their word to me on being committed to the change and then went back on their word or called into question their word publicly. It is different for an employee to come to me (or another change agent) privately and express concern, discontent, and allow me to impact that conversation. It is a different thing to take the conversation public.
I can't say what I would have done in the context of Football, but I know what I would have done in the context of a business.