That’s right about Likely Letters being something entirely different from NLIs and I hope I didn’t confuse the issue by bringing up LLs on this thread.
As noted LLs are common in the Ivies (which don’t have NLIs as they don’t have athletic scholarships). In the case of the Ivies, LLs, which come from admissions, are to reassure recruits that they will in fact be admitted to the school. And since many of these schools have single digit admission rates, it makes sense for recruits to want that reassurance.
I’m not sure how common LLs are at the scholarship D1 schools, other than Stanford. At Stanford, like the Ivies, the admission rate is very low and so recruits want official word from admissions (not just their coach). And the Stanford dean of admissions previously had the same job at Yale so is experienced with the Ivy League process and LLs.
Certainly there are other scholarship D1 schools with high academics/low admission rates (Duke, Northwestern, etc.) so I would assume they have something similar in place. I’m not sure of the specifics though.