I've been through a couple of similar "reviews," and you're not wrong. Schill is answerable to the faculty, who are, no doubt, calling for the abolition of the athletic programs, as they would on any campus. Faculty generally detest athletics because of the money that flows through the programs, which could be better spent on strengthening their own Sumatran Basket Weaving majors. In order to pacify the faculty, these reviews will result in several findings, which will be used for the bloodletting you described, so that Schill can look the faculty in the eye and say "I heard you, and gutted athletics."
The big question, though, is Gragg's future. He's the logical sacrificial lamb, and I think ejecting him would be justified. Perhaps Schill wants incontrovertible evidence of lack of institutional control before he does that, which I understand.
In the end, though, athletics don't play the same role at Northwestern as they do at Illinois. Northwestern has never really cared that much about winning. If it did, Fitz would have been fired after last season based on record alone. None of the other sports are tearing it up in the B1G, or nationally, but that's not the point in Evanston. Hell, they don't even care about having an in-state B1G rival, and neither do we. Frankly, very few people give a damn about athletics at Northwestern. Because of that, Schill can use the results of the reviews to make symbolic changes, which may result in fewer wins. The silver lining is that nobody really cares about that, so the symbolism works beautifully. Gragg either falls on his sword, or is thrown under the bus; Schill can claim to have taken bold action based on the data from the reviews, demonstrating to the faculty that athletics is not a sacred cow. Everyone's happy, and Schill keeps his job.