If this college football bowl season has taught us anything, it is that a playoff system would be awesome.

But as we all know, that is never going to happen. As in when pigs fly never. As in when that place down there freezes over never. As in when the Buffalo Bills win the Super Bowl never.

The reason a college football playoff will be absent from our TV screens and a stadium near you isn’t because the season would be too long or any other reason invented by those who run the bowls.

It is because the bowl system is the biggest form of graft and corruption this side of Somalia.

A recent story that appeared in the Dallas Observer shockingly (and perfectly) illustrated this fleecing.

The story mentioned the 2009 University of Minnesota football team which went 6-6 and qualified for the Insight Bowl in Tempe, Ariz., where it faced Iowa State, another 6-6 team.

As soon as the university accepted the bowl bid, it was on the hook for 10,000 tickets at full face value.

Top teams have difficulty selling that many tickets. Minnesota only unloaded 901 and was forced to eat $476,000 worth of useless tickets.

Where did that money go? Right into the pockets of the Football Bowl Subdivision cronies.

The teams were required to arrive in Tempe a week before the game, putting further strain on the schools’ purse strings.

By the time it was all said and done, Minnesota had flushed $1.3 million down the college football toilet.

Only half of the bowl games generate enough income for the schools who play in them to merely break even.

With state schools seeing budget cuts left and right, who ultimately picks up the tab for these bowl games?

The students who attend those schools in the form of outrageous tuition hikes every year.

Meanwhile, the FBS rakes in the money.

If there were a playoff system, the schools would get a far bigger share of the purse.

Networks would pay a much higher price to televise a first-round matchup of Michigan and Virginia Tech. Instead, we get to look forward to a snoozer like SMU vs. Pittsburgh in the BBVA Compass Bowl.

Perhaps more disturbing is this little nugget: In 2009 when the University of Florida beat Oklahoma in the national championship game, Florida managed a mere $50,000 in profit.

Gator coaches and athletic officials took home nearly $1 million in bonuses.

The bowl system generates more than $300 million each year. Almost none of that money gets back to the schools who play in them.

So, enjoy the rest of the bowl season. It isn’t going anywhere.

Mike Kilroy is a staff writer for the Butler Eagle.