College athletics and football recruiting.

There's an argument that it's harder to sell a university and its football program if the university is in the "middle of nowhere" and/or if the location has bad weather (read: cold, windy winters) for certain programs like the University of Illinois. This is blatantly false since some of the most successful and historic football programs are located in or near medium metros or college towns. Let's just look at a number of Big Ten football teams and then a few other programs who share location "issues" and bad weather.

Big Ten
Michigan (Ann Arbor): Sometimes referred as A2, Ann Arbor, is about an hour drive to  Detroit, though how many students actually spend a night in Detroit to party it up?

Michigan St. (East Lansing): The city of East Lansing has a population of approximately 48,870 according to wiki.

Penn St. (State College): Again, according to wiki State College has a population of approximately 41,992.

Iowa (Iowa City): Population is around 74,398.

Nebraska (Lincoln): Located in the capital of Nebraska, it only has a population of 258,379. The last time I heard Lincoln wasn't New Orleans in terms of night life.

Purdue (West Lafayette): The city of West Lafayette has a population of 45,872.

Wisconsin (Madison): Probably, besides A2, the best college town within the Big Ten but still suffers the Midwest winters.

Mid-Majors
NIU (Dekalb): Arguable the most successful football program in the state of Illinois and one of the few MAC football powerhouses. They have a horrid track record when it comes to bowl games: They simply get crushed. Plenty of NFL players from NIU's program. Dekalb, located west of Chicago, is about an 1 hr and 15 min. drive from the city.

Boise St. (Boise): Like Wisconsin, the university is located in its state capitol which is home to about 205,671 people.

Independent 
Notre Dame (South Bend): Located in South Bend which has a population of about 101,735. About an 1 and 30 min. drive to the city of Chicago. Probably the most storied football program besides Nebraska and Penn St. listed.

When Ron Zook was hired to be Illinois' head football coach in 2005 top recruits came to Urbana-Champaign. Part of it was because Zook was a great recruiter and the other was implanting the idea that they were pioneers in helping Illinois become a winning program, something that it wasn't in years past. So the recruits came and they started winning, sorta (out of seven seasons, the Illini went to three bowl games, winning two of the three). This in spite of where the university is located - central Illinois, two hours south of Chicago - and the bad Midwest winters top recruits came. The Urbana-Champaign metro has about 231,891 living souls, which, besides Madison, is the largest metro in the list.

It helps to have a winning a program. It's better to have a head coach that knows how to recruit and how to recruit the right players to fit his system. The winning will come, slowly but surely, but until that happens the recruits need to buy into the vision of the coaching staff.

Verdict: Location and weather doesn't really matter. The vision and system of the head coach, aided with his recruiting abilities, matters more.