Forget Mike MacIntyre. Mel Tucker should have Larry Scott’s gig.

“I think the key to it is, hopefully, expand the (College Football Playoff) deal so whoever wins the Pac-12 gets in,” the CU Buffs’ first-year football coach told The Post recently. “And the other thing we need to do — they changed the rule, and we’re allowed to do this, so I know, in a couple of years, we’ve got Northern Colorado (in 2021) and instead of it being Week 2, it can be Week 11.

“Before you play Auburn, at Alabama, you play Louisiana Monroe, right? Well before we play Utah in the last game of the year, you’re playing USC. So we can help ourselves in scheduling that way. But we’ve got to be aggressive in putting really good teams on our schedule.”

She’s the sky blue ’68 Mustang our father-in-law’s garage, the one that’s been stuck underneath a tarp for more than a decade, an icon gathering dust when it should be burning rubber. Pac-12 football is the toy we all think we could fix up, given the right time and tools, to its former glory. More morning kicks. More prime-time kicks. Earlier league openers. #Pac12AfterDark. #Pac12BreakfastClub. Chuck a hashtag against the wall, see if it sticks.

Most of Tucker’s collegiate mileage is in the Big Ten and SEC, where the bulk of the eyeballs, dollars and power in the game reside. He knows the national landscape from the other side of the coin. And to his eyes, the Mustang in the garage doesn’t need a new engine so much as a paint job and a fresh set of rims:

Step 1. Lobby to get every Power 5 champion a seat at the table.

Step 2. Stop beating each other up in November.

Step 3. Schedule “name” programs out of your league. And, you know, actually beat them.

“(The SEC), they’re selling that, ‘You’ve got a really good chance to win a national championship, and we play the best competition, which is going to give you the most exposure, it’s going to give you the best chance to play in the NFL, it’s going to give you the best chance for postseason awards,’” said Tucker, who spent the last four seasons chasing national titles on the staffs at Georgia and Alabama.

“I’ve been selling that for the last four years, right?’ So what I’m selling now, I’m selling, ‘Hey, the Pac-12 is down, and now it’s our time to get it going.’ But I would love to able to say, ‘All we’ve got to do is win our conference and we’re in.’”

When’s the last time common sense won a home game in the Pac-12?

“Give me eight, right?” Tucker continued. “So we can get in and get three at-large (teams), and let’s go. And have the first round (where) you could go on the road (to campus sites) and play. And then, after that, do it like they’re doing it now. Because that really gives you a chance now to get in there. You could lose a game and still get in.”

An eight-team CFB bracket is coming, and the longer the Big Ten is left out of the party, the quicker that train figures to arrive. It’s why Power 5 teams are trying to find other Power 5 brethren to schedule nearly two decades out, why Tucker’s Buffs have notable sparring partners — Florida, Nebraska, Texas A&M, Northwestern, Missouri, Georgia Tech — locked down through at least 2030 and tentative dates lined up through 2034. As the pool deepens, so too, does the importance of schedule strength, or the perception therein. Step 3 and Step 1, done right, dance in tandem.

“We need to recruit, right?” Tucker explained. “So as soon as those schedules come out that we’re playing Florida, we put a graphic together, and we sent it out: ‘You’re going to play against the best competition.’ ”

There are a lot of adjectives that describe the Mustang at present, but “best” isn’t chief among them. The Pac-12 has missed the four-team CFP field three times in its first five years, including the last two brackets in a row.

Wobbles at Oregon, USC and UCLA, three of the loop’s marquee draws, have something to do with that. The South division is a wide-open mess, which is good for the Buffs but lousy for the brand. That’s where Step 2 comes in, a nod to the SEC and ACC.

Pac-12 coaches and administrators were told at league meetings recently that they’ve got the green light to move non-conference games toward the end of the slate, if all parties can make it work. CU hasn’t played a non-conference tilt in November since 1972, when the Buffs visited Air Force.

Over the first five seasons of the CFP, 12 of the 20 participants — 60 percent — faced at least one non-league foe in November. Take out Notre Dame, an independent in the ‘18-19 field, and it’s still 11 of 19. If we’ve learned anything from the last decade, it’s this: When in doubt, legislate ways to help yourself. Because nobody else will.

“Can you lose a game in the Pac-12,” Tucker mused, “and still get in?”

Probably not.

“So you’ve got the night game stuff, you’ve got the schedule, you’ve got trying to get the TV deal (worked out) … and then you lose one game, you’re out? Now that’s hard.”

It doesn’t have to be. It shouldn’t have to be.