I give Wolf props for his treatment of the mentality of recruits, and his looking for local products. However, we had both of his predecessors try to do the same, and end up going the same way at the end. When Coach T was here, the local recruits were excited about building a program that was going to the MAC. Since I think that is the direction we are going, I would expect we could do the same now. Also the level of local HS players was so much higher in the 80's & 90's then it is now. We can travel now, and recruit upper-tier talent.
YSU still has an enormous reputation nationally, and it only makes sense to recruit as such. There is not a place you can go, that knows FB, that does not recognize YSU. I told the story before about how we were treated at the Texas regional in baseball. Those fans considered our FB program to be first-rate ...new about all the coaches that had spent time here, and knew the area as a place to recruit top prep talent. I still think that much of that reputation is in tact.
Something else we could do is change our style of play. Coach T was smart. He built an option-based team, at the time IA schools (even the Big-8) were dropping the option. As a result we were able to bring in some of the nation's top players that could not find a home (i.e.: Ray Isaac) in the then-new pro-set offenses. Kurt Hess is an example of the opposite. He was a pro-set recruit in an area with option teams ...cinci, louisville, UK, OU. Coach M offers him a chance to excel, and I do not think he would have that anywhere else. He is going to have a shot at the next-level.
