See, here’s the thing, Larry Scott: In the college football ratings game, conferences don’t sell.

Brand names do.

Ohio State. Texas. Alabama. Michigan. USC. Nebraska. Oklahoma. Notre Dame. Clemson. Penn State. LSU. Florida. Washington and Oregon, to a lesser degree. Play ‘em at 5 a.m. Play ‘em at midnight. Doesn’t matter — they’re all gold, whether the actual product on the field happens to be good, bad or indifferent.

Your teams that the country doesn’t care about kicking off at the crack of dawn won’t suddenly make people sit up and watch.

Your teams rolling out there and kicking the snot out of the brands that folks do care about will.

“I’m open-minded about it,” CU Buffs athletic director Rick George says of Scott’s latest gambit from Pac-12 Media Day, where the commissioner floated the notion of league kickoffs at noon eastern — 10 a.m. local time — on a Saturday.

“But my concern is getting the students there. The students are a big part of the atmosphere that you have, and having a 10 o’clock in the morning kick might be challenging.”

To put it another way: Raging hangovers and marching bands don’t exactly mix.

“There are some positives, too, so I don’t want to seem like I’m negative on this,” George notes. “I’m not. I just think there’s a lot of research that we need to do.”

As far as George knows, just because CU is the easternmost outpost of the loop doesn’t mean it’s necessarily first in line for the Pac-12’s kickoff experiment. And George, also as far as he knows, has the power to decline the time slot.

But CU remains a prime candidate, perhaps as soon as this fall, so the Buffs administrator wants to canvass new coach Mel Tucker, his marketing team and student and support groups before diving into The Breakfast Club with both feet.

“I’m not saying a firm, respectful no at this point. I want to do a little more (research),” George said. “I think having more information up front would be helpful as we move forward.”

Well, there’s this: According to the web site SportsMediaWatch.com, of the top 10 most watched regular-season college football broadcasts each week during the 2018 season, an average of 2.4 games among the top 10 kicked off at noon eastern time or earlier. Conversely, the games that started at 6 p.m. New York time or later — prime time — made up an average of four games in the top 10, or nearly twice as many as the Eastern lunch hour.

Also: Of the 33 most-watched contests in the Pac-12 according to SportsMediaWatch.com — live television and streaming — since August 2017, only three of those tilts, 9 percent, kicked off before 2 p.m. eastern, noon Denver time.

Brands, Larry. Brands.

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“I think it gives us an opportunity to be creative if we choose to do it,” George said. “But I’d really like to hear more from our fans on their thoughts. I’ve seen some polls out and it’s kind of mixed.”

To put it mildly. The Denver Post conducted an informal poll on Twitter shortly after word of Scott’s gambit got out. Of the 177 initial respondents, 62 percent said a morning kick was lunacy, compared to 38 percent in favor.

A 10 a.m. start at Folsom Field in front of a half-empty stadium could be many things. But good optics sure as heck ain’t one of them.