Bill Franks is a good leader and a good coach.
I think what gets severely overlooked with Newark when it comes to football is 1) the lack of historical success and 2) the intersections of geography, community-school health*pride, economics and intergenerational 'struggles.' The former factor is tough for a lot of communities, although possibly fixable with the "right" coach. But, when compounded with the latter (and that's a heavy burden) it makes the situation supremely difficult.
Newark has only made the playoffs once in the last 40 years (2005.) That already is a rough indicator on the lack of program tradition and pride. It carries over generations, and it carries across lots of people. Hurts confidence, yes; hurts trust in the continuous climb that is football to get from the cellar of crap to respectability and winning. And that's very tough to buck when you play in the largest size-classification possible against a schedule that is 70% similarly-sized. Look at Westland, look at ye' olde Thomas Worthington. Those programs have similar problems, and although they have had some marginally more "respectable" results of recent... its the same tale. Consider, then, "2)." Newark is a large exurb with a massive school system. A very sizable portion of the student body befits working-class with many at-or-below the poverty borderline. It's not Upper Arlington, or Gahanna, or even Central Crossing. In many ways, its a lot closer to a school like Westland than even the closest-resembling conference foe in their part of the OCC.
Invariably, despite the 'wealth' of having ~1000 boys in grades 9-12, those economics and home situations render a massive chunk of the school as not very usable for football. Now look at Newark vis-a-vis the rest of Licking County, past and present. Newark is playing the entire existence of their schedule against schools that is to some extent "far away" (Columbus suburbs, Lancaster, Mt. Vernon and Zanesville.) No real meaningful connection or common denominator in playing those schools other than "real big"; I suppose you could argue the Newark-Lancaster and Newark-Zanesville rivalries, but, like, those probably don't extend to today's generation of kids like it did in the 90's and points earlier. Contrast that to what immediately surrounds Newark: the Licking County League (LCL), its school-communities, those traditions, the attractiveness of those communities and what the schools have to offer versus Newark (City Schools.) Newark is indented to the west by a high-performing mid-sized school community known for its academics, athletics and general quality-of-life (Granville); it shares a border to its direct south with a smaller school community that has a lot of pride and nice areas to live (Heath); to its east is a school that can be easily pitched as "a small and more attractive alternative to Newark" (Licking Valley.) In the southwest portion of Licking County, you have two districts far closer to Columbus that can pitch a lot of the "big school perks" in the academic and extracurricular offerings to families looking to move. Newark, City of, simply isn't an attractive landing point for a lot of families unless there is some pre-existing ties there. Same goes for the school system. The mobile, middle-class and heavily-invested collection of families exist 'in spades' at all of these schools. Newark has a share of those families, but not nearly enough in proportion to its school size and this is especially true when you factor in what it takes to be consistently competitive in Division I HSFB. So while Newark is Division I by sheer school size, they're really a dramatically low-end outlier in the picture of Division I for a growing, wealthy Central Ohio school-football climate. They're honestly a Central Ohio version of Hamilton, Middletown and possibly Elyria... except Newark may be a half-step markedly worse than even those three when it comes to school-community socioeconomics and the corresponding effect on the football program.
Re: Newark Catholic -- NC doesn't really affect Newark football, at all. Have to remember a lot of those kids probably don't live in Newark's district (instead Granville, Johnstown, Utica, Valley, Lakewood) and ~95% of the parents would never seriously consider sending their kids to Newark City Schools for whatever reason... even if NC didn't have football.