Since Big Ten fans can’t attend games this year (i.e., except for players' families), the sound of silence is going to be pretty strange in The Shoe.

But does it have to be silent?

Beyond piping in the Buckeye fight song after every score, the stadium could play old recordings of screaming fans, but that seems a bit phony and tacky.

So, the brainstorming challenge here is to come up with better ideas (or at least funnier ones) for generating noise and/or somehow pumping fan reactions onto the field.

For example, the TV broadcast could include real-time reactions of crowds of Buckeye fans watching the game being aired at local bars and restaurants throughout Columbus.

For that matter, inside the stadium, they could show the same fans up on the Jumbotron, getting all fired up when good stuff happens, the same way they feature live benues when playoff bids are announced.

Of course, they’ll have sync up the sound to avoid any mismatch with the network’s seven-second delays, as well as avoid drunken fans yelling obscenities, but then, they already have to do those sorts of things during normal broadcasts, right?

Anyway, the above idea is pretty straightforward and seems doable enough, but I’m sure the smart folks here have some better ideas. OR… is the whole concept even dumber than watching a game without ANY fan noise?

Psst.... according to inside sources, Fox is going to move the big Penn State-OSU match-up to a night game with Beaver stadium shining white-hot laser beams onto cardboard cuts of 100,000 fans, each equipped with a boom box blasted on cue.