The staff is overworked and cannot be expected to perform at Div. I standards with a Div. An effort has to be made to draw attention to this school. No one can care about the product if no one knows about it. This school does have a geographic disadvantage.
Nothing is really popular north of Boston.
Other schools gain popularity because of their proximity to a city. Look at Temple. Most of its athletic teams are awful. Its football team is going to single-handedly cause the Big East to go under. But the school is in Philadelphia.