in a situation like that I think you treat it as advanced D2. You want to pull down the best players who will talk to you. Figure out where that is, but I'm not sure if guys with stars will even. If so, 1, maybe 2 if they are close? But maybe none.
But now you get to do pull and drop downs with D1 money. So that's fun.
You conference is almost empty. Play to beat the other human in the CT for the auto bid. Raise your prestige by winning the CT and getting that NT a couple times, then you will have to start recruiting like D1 to advance...