My ds is a kid who physics and math are simply the air that he breathes. When he was a sr in high school, he had just come home from SSP that summer and was dual enrolled in physics and math at the local university. He assisted in UG research at that university. (They don’t have a grad physics program, so he was working directly with a prof.)
He would have jumped at the chance to attend Arizona. He attended astronomy camp there and spent the weeks at Kitt Peak. (New MexicoTech is another place he would have been happy to attend.) Unfortunately for him, his parents’ budget is a fraction of your parents, and it severely limited his options. His option narrowed to free when he was awarded scholarships equivalent to full-ride (not an opportunity our family could afford for him to not take.) But, as a college sophomore (by yrs, not class hours), he sees nothing about his situation as unfortunate and is loving every single minute of his UG experience.
I think he has decided that theoretical/particle physics is also a love (though his brain is definitely focused somewhere out in the cosmos.) I am not sure what he is planning for his future (honestly, I stopped understanding 90% of what he was talking about when he was in 8th grade. 
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Anyway, he is not concerned about attending a lower ranked school. He knows that other students have gone on to top grad programs around the country. He has embraced every opportunity the university and dept offers and absolutely loves his school. He spent 2nd semester of his freshman yr working with a prof on radon research (not his favorite, but as a freshman, he was happy to be actively involved) and then this past summer he got a UG research position on a neutrino project. He is continuing that research this semester and spends hours every week coding. (Do you enjoy programming? I have lost track of how many languages he uses, but I know fortran, Python, C++, and whatever he is using for the neutrino project are all languages he has had to not just learn, but actively use.)
The neutrino project has taught him a tremendous amt. His mentoring prof meets with him weekly and he has very specific goals he needs to accomplish for that prof. Which is really the point of my responding. Learning is not confined to your classroom experience. What opportunities outside of the classroom exist? What will you be able to achieve outside of your course sequence? Those experiences are going to help shape and define your UG experience. They will help you fine tune your long-term goals. When ds was applying to colleges, one top university told ds that he already had more research experience than most of their UGs bc their focus is on their grad students and UGs work for the grads, not directly with the profs. He was also told getting involved in research as a freshman was next to impossible. Ds is a doer. He would not be happy simply attending class. He wants to be in the thick of things and actively participating wherever he can be. Bc he can and is, he is in a very happy place. 