Go Guins,
Your thesis about the impact of downtown Youngstown does not hold up. During the 1990s, downtown was a mess, suffering the full impact of the loss of those steel mills. Boarded up buildings everywhere. Yet the 1990s were the Golden Age for YSU sports: four football titles, three women's NCAA appearances, even a conference final for the men. In fact, the 1997-98 academic year was the single best sports year in our history: the fourth football title, the women beating Memphis in the tournament, the men under Dan Peters playing for the conference title but losing. Today, downtown Youngstown has reinvented itself. New government buildings, the world class business incubator, the additive manufacturing center, the Covelli Center, new apartments and gentrification, an artistic colony, cultural venues, and various watering holes.
Obviously, we are not going to recruit the kid that places a high priority on going to a party school. But beyond that, location and facilities are secondary to the relationship between the recruit and the coach. We are successful in track and women's hoops because we have good coaches. We lose in men's basketball and other Olympic sports because we have bad coaches.