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A good back judge will move himself in front of the PR after they signal fair catch and the ball is secured, to prevent the KT members from attempting to hit the PR.

As for this play, if the KT member just grabs the guy, even if it was a fair catch, there will be no foul as the refs will determine that the KT member didn't see the fair catch but also didn't take advantage of the situation to justify attempted murder.

Exactly. Same as players do on potential fumbles when it’s somewhat questionable they grab an opp that picks up ball just to make sure. They don’t just smash them though

I didn't see this one so I don't know the exact situation but I think there should be a rule change to make it clear that if the returner takes any action that could reasonably confused for a fair catch then a fair catch is declared and the ball is spotted where the catch was made.  

I do not remember who was playing but I saw a game a few years ago where the returner partially raised his hand, the coverage team pulled up, then the returner caught the ball and took off and the refs let the return stand.  On the next punt if I were on the coverage team I think I would tackle him unless I was 10,000% certain that the ref blew the whistle.  That could be dangerous!  

officials should have flagged him for an invalid fair catch signal. anything the resembles, but not a "legal" signal is a penalty.

He didn’t make any move to look like a fair catch. He just stood there and caught the ball.
I agree on the waving hands rule, even if they’re just telling teammates to move. But that’s not what happened here. This one the pr took a calculated risk to not move at all and just stood there and caught it. Once he caught he he just started walking slowly upfield all while arky defenders were around him. Once past them he took off.

I watched it and he brings his left hand up twice.  He doesn’t go above his shoulder and he doesn’t wave but he does raise his left hand twice.  This was all carefully planned out.  Even to the point of telling the officials about it beforehand, instructing him to run down the UNT sideline as to not encounter Arkansas players walking on and off the field, and making sure their players didn’t walk onto the field.
I think the hand motion was part of it, too.  The extra hand motion I believe was to further place doubt in the Arkansas’ players minds as to whether a fair catch was called or not.

As a high school football official, when we hear someone, particularly a coach, say this, we quickly correct him. The whistle does not kill the play, the play is killed by rule. The whistle is only an acknowledgement that the play is over. In fact, the only time a whistle kills a play is an inadvertent whistle. I work as an Umpire and I rarely ever blow my whistle, more often than not I am saying "plays over, plays over" if it is done in the middle of the field. Playing to the whistle, leads to late hits. Players are the majority of the time quite aware when a play is over without the whistle.
I wish I could get this phrase completely out of the game.

I agree completely. I worked as head linesman for years on our crew and corrected many coaches. In one game, the team on my sideline had a player that was very close to some late hits on a couple of plays. I warned the player and then told the coach that he may want to pull that player and have a talk with him. The coach responded with "we play till the whistle." I explained exactly what you posted and gave him a chance to correct his player before we (my crew) did. He chose not too. I was about 3 plays later that I got him for a late hit and the coach went ballistic saying the whistle hadn't blown, completely ignoring the conversation I had just had with him. 

As to your actions as umpire, I wish you had been ours on a couple of occasions when our umpire decided he needed to blow his whistle. We threatened to take it away from him after his 2nd inadvertent.  

If a QB slides the play is over.  The whistle comes later.

Good Post " at minimum, grab him and make the refs blow whistles again." - did not think of that

This.
You don't "blow up" a player standing there, but if you don't hear a whistle, or see the fair catch, get yourself in the place to prevent shenanigans. 

I thought it clever, entertaining, and effective, so I am for it, but I'm sure it will get ruled out because of the potential for player injury in the future.