Bootleg Offseason Roundtable

Fire Mark May provides.

Your Home Field Advantage

Give the more zealous portion of your fanbase a religion. What’s this cult following? Feel free to give the splitters a derogatory nickname.

Zealotry runs low in the Michigan fanbase; it is both out of character in general and fairly difficult to maintain after five miseries in six against most hated rival forever. There are people who are hopeful but chastened and then there are the jaded. What zealotry exists seems mostly confined to kids who don't know better, those who have taken up their Zoltan worship with admirable fervor, and that crazy old guy who used to come to hockey games and shout "hey! hey! hey!" as if he was some sort of crazy elderly "that was a penalty" metronome. I miss that guy.

Your biggest rival is in town, and College Gameday is coming….to your citaaaaaaay… Create a blatant corporate sellout promotion to appeal to the mass unwashed.

I do not understand this question. Who am I appealing to? Gameday watchers? Fans approaching the stadium? Me (mass unwashed could refer to my hair)? If it's the latter, everyone would get tshirts reading "It wouldn't be that surprising if Jim Tressel turned out to be a child molester"; on the back they would say "I'm just sayin'", because when you say "I'm just sayin'" you can get away with anything.

Add one local delicacy to your stadium’s concessions. Post-tax pricing is optional.

I don't actually buy concessions in-stadium, like, ever, but I believe that Spot's "wings" -- often less wing, more Tyrannosaur forearm -- already have outposts inside the stadium, though I think they restrict themselves to cheesesteaks and the like. So that obvious answer is out, leaving a really, really obvious answer: BTB, nee Big Ten Burrito until the athletic conference sued the pants off of the local cheese and rice and bean and optional meats in a tortilla of joy purveyor. It is still called Big Ten Burrito in our hearts, and if there was any justice they would be in the stadium as well. Ideally these would be as enormous and reasonably priced as the existing BTBs.

With an unlimited AD budget, add or subtract one thing to your school’s gameday experience that has nothing to do with football.

This idea is good and free: unite the Maize Rage and hockey season ticket holders in the best student seats available on the condition that they import/invent a wide variety of entertaining cheers, chants, and profanity.

General NCAA questions

Coin a hilariously unrealistic stereotype that you would like to “make stick” for this upcoming season.

My world is full of hilariously realistic stereotypes: Ohio State fans all secretly want to drive monster trucks. Michigan State fans are all bitter about getting rejected from Michigan. Notre Dame fans could, with only a little prodding, end up building Charlie Weis a spaceship so he can fly them to salvation.

Oh, wait, I've got one: Michigan football always wins when it matters most.

Redesign your conference or independent schedule with reckless abandon. Be prepared to include compensation for jilted schools and conferences in your explanation.

In an ideal world I can explode twelve-team conferences entirely. Penn State, Virginia Tech and Boston College are hacked off their conferences and join the Big East. Four teams from the Big 12 and SEC grab TCU, a newly booted USF, and teams to be named later to form an eight-team conference. Everyone plays round-robin schedules; championship games go away. Oh, and no one can play I-AA schools and the NCAA actually enforces its attendance mandates -- paid attendance -- and boots 20-30 teams from I-A.

Following up on your new realignment, blow up the BCS and devise a national playoff system, money grabs and missed exams be damned. Using your new fantasy conferences is optional.

This exercise has been undertaken in this space earlier. The upshot: a six-team playoff with home games for higher-seeded teams with the final at the Rose Bowl. First two rounds take place in December. Bowl system remains intact otherwise. Six teams is the best balance between preserving the importance of the regular season, since there is still a compelling reason to finish one or two and acquire a bye, and opening up the field to a reasonable number of competitors. There are no autobids in my fantasy system, so conference realignment (and non-BCS complaining and the Notre Dame exception irritant) is a nonfactor.

Elect one public figure to replace NCAA president Myles Brand. Anyone with proper name recognition is eligible.

You don't even have to replace the second "C" on the wheel he uses as he steers the ship of state. Only half in jest. Obviously the NCAA does not need to murder 10 million people, but socialism would be better for everyone at this point. Unfettered capitalism in this instance leads to Michigan-Appalachian State.