It's a topic of conversation that has been around since the inception of televised collegiate sporting events: should college players be paid to play? Cole Cubelic of 730 and 103.9 WUMP joined Ryan Fowler to preview the upcoming college football season, but the discussion turned to the pay for play topic and Cubelic had some strong opinions on the issue.

Recently, college athletes have earned a stipend when on scholarship to play a varsity sport while in college, but they aren't outright "paid" employees of the universities that they play for. Cubelic is a former football player at Auburn University, and he was rather clear that what college athletes get now is more than what they need or deserve.

"I will always stand by my argument that college football players do not need nor, more importantly, deserve to be paid... There is a gigantic difference in deserved and desired... A lot of folks in the media are driving and forcing that message (of deserving to be paid), and I just disagree with it."

Cubelic is a product of his opinion, as he wasn't able to make it successfully in the NFL, just like over 95 percent of collegiate football players do. He believes that the platform that college football players benefit from can give them many more opportunities in the world of employment simply because they played big time collegiate football.

"The platform that you are provided as a big time college football player is worth more than 99 percent of the jobs of all graduates... that platform gives you the capability to go make an endless amount of money."

You can hear the conversation below, and you can check out the entire interview in our podcast center.

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