In this morning’s Oakland Trib Monte Poole made a convincing and eloquent defense of a college football playoff system. I will link to Monte’s article in a moment. His piece got me to thinking. I respectfully disagree with Monte and with everyone who wants playoffs for college football. I’ll do my best to make my case.

People who want a playoff system clamor for clarity, the kind you get in the NFL when the system comes down to two teams in the Super Bowl. Clarity is nice. But college is not the NFL. It’s not pros playing sports. It’s students who also play sports, for the most part. It’s students who don’t get paid, for the most part.

People who want playoffs are asking college players to play more games for free, to risk injury for free, to stay away from class for free and just so athletic conferences can make money and the NCAA can make money on the backs of amateurs. I don’t like that and I don’t think clarity is worth that. There is no need to know which is the best team beyond the means we have now. If you want to watch pro sports watch the NFL. But let college kids be college kids.  To read Monte’s column click here.