This might get buried but I really disagree with OP that our facility upgrades aren't improving recruiting.
I think you can see a very positive trend in that recruiting data, and you can see it correlate to attendance as well. Also I think OP is acting like a 3 point increase in 247 composite rating is nothing. The difference between ISU right now and Baylor's #1 class in the B12 is 6.6 points. If we added 3 more points on top of what we have now, we'd be 4th in the B12 instead of 8th.
And all of that begins as ISU improves facilities.
I made some VERY crappy excel graphs and added some even worse paint notes and put them in this IMGR album.
Red lines stand for new coaches first years, yellow lines stand for the year AFTER we added wider concourses, the new Football Facility, and the SEZ.
http://imgur.com/a/Epvp4
I also put the attendance and recruiting rankings in there twice as I figured a trendline might be nice.
But you can clearly see that while our regular season record is trending down, if anything, that our recruiting is only getting better and that goes hand in hand with facilities. And those facilities go hand in hand with increased attendance which boosts recruiting.
And I think it's safe to say recruiting has not been a strong point for either Chizik or Rhoads' staffs.