Quarterback McKenzie Milton has yet to take his first college football snap and already he’s been piled on, pummeled and gang-tackled.

His transgression?

Milton, a Mililani high senior, switched his 13-month-old recruiting “commitment” from the University of Hawaii to Central Florida this week.

From some of the comments sent his way you’d have thought he pledged to the black flag of ISIS, not an 0-12 team in Orlando.

But, then, National Letter of Intent Day, the first opportunity for high school seniors to sign binding commitments to colleges, is 11 days away, and fans tend to get a little excited as the recruiting payoff approaches. The etymology of “fan” of course coming from “fanatic,” some say.

After five consecutive years without a winning season, die-hard UH faithful have high hopes for a revival under new head coach Nick Rolovich. And if a locally produced quarterback can be seen to be part of that, immediately reaffirming Rolovich’s “loyal to the soil” pitch, what better story line could you have?

Only two local quarterbacks have been consensus starters over the past 19 years, and hope springs eternal that somebody will, sooner rather than later, step into the spikes of Bryant Moniz, the last one to lead UH to a winning season (2010), and Tim Chang.

Moniz’s tutor at UH, you may recall, was Rolovich.

The fact that Milton was a package with receiver Kalakaua Timoteo stirred imaginations since they “committed” as Mililani juniors. Not since Alex Kaloi and his receiver, Rick Wagner, teamed up at Leilehua and UH in the 1970s, perhaps, have we had the potential of such a local same-school one-two passing combination.

So, yes, you could say another one is overdue.

Alas, Milton and Timoteo “committed” to then-head coach Norm Chow, who, as we all know, is now in the florist — not football — business.

And while players are supposed to “commit” to a school not a coach (as Timoteo, a life-long UH fan, has apparently done) since the profession is so transitory, it is more a lofty ideal than reality.

Coaches jump to better deals or get fired. Players reassess their options in the changing landscape, too, thus giving the recruiting lexicon oxymoron of “soft commit.”

Fact is 30 to 50 percent of recruits may “de-commit” — another curious term exclusive to recruiting — in any given year, studies suggest. Coaches from competing schools count on it and hammer away at exploiting it. As UCF’s recently hired head coach, Scott Frost, apparently did touting a resume as Marcus Mariota’s coach at Oregon.

In 2014 Rivals.com reported that nearly 50 percent of the top prospects in one of its lists flipped on their choice of schools by the time they eventually signed on the dotted line.

Changing his mind doesn’t make Milton a villain. It just means he is an 18-year-old who, in making a big decision in his young life, exercised an option.

Instead of vilifying Milton, UH fans would do better to celebrate the steadfastness of Timoteo.

Reach Ferd Lewis at flewis@staradvertiser.com or 529-4820.