They want to plant the victory flag before the battle's even really been enjoined.
I think this is part of the problem. There is nothing wrong with getting mildly (or even more than mildly) excited about the little battles that are won. How will we do in the war? Who knows, and that's your Charlie Weiss example...he won some battles (recruiting) but lost battles on the field so often that he lost the war.
Right now, each guy that has verbally committed to us represents a battle won. Other programs are fighting for these kids and when one of them says "screw the rest of y"all, I'm going with Auburn"...that's a battle won, and one worth getting somewhat excited about. As those recruiting battles are won on many fronts (RB, WR, OL, LB, etc), we can get progressively more excited.
To your point, winning recruiting battles doesn't mean we'll win the war. Napoleon was a genius until he decided to march his troops through Russia in the winter. All the battles previous to that were meaningless as his 400,000 that marched into Russia returned as only 40,000. Eventually Waterloo sent him the way of Weiss.
So yeah, we can't claim victory of the "war". But I see nothing wrong in acknowledging the battles we're winning thus far. And on signing day, we can get excited about battles actually won. Then we can move on to the battles on the field. And if this year was any indication, we at least have reason to believe that more talent will lead this staff to more wins. An absolute? Not at all. Reason to be cautiously optimistic? Absolutely.