There’s two sides to every argument.

Severl national media members have come out this week and said that it’s in LSU running back Leonard Fournette’s best interest to sit out the 2016 season to “protect his investment” and avoid injury.

College GameDay analyst Kirk Herbstreit isn’t buying that assessment. He fired back at detractors on Wednesday during an appearance on ESPN’s Mike & Mike radio show:

“If he’s thinking about not playing his junior year, we talk about that if it’s the right thing or the wrong thing, and then the agents get involved and talk to these players,” Herbstreit said. “Then they go out and play, and they’re not the same player. ‘Watch the knees,’ instead of just playing like they’ve been playing since they were 11 years old, being physical and not worrying about those things. That’s how you made a name for yourself.

“When you’re a freshman in college, you’re not worried about getting hurt. You played hard. When you play hard and you’re not worried about that, chances are you’re not going to get hurt.”

Herbstreit wasn’t finished.

“This idea that, ‘He shouldn’t have come back, look what happened to him,’ you can point to one or two guys in the history of the game that came back and got an injury. These guys recover from ACLs in eight months now. They come back bigger, badder and faster,” he said. “We plant these seeds of, ‘Why did he come back? The players always have the short end of the stick.’ It’s just a bunch of crap. It’s not real-world stuff. It’s make-believe stuff and stuff that is bad for the game, to be honest.”

It’s easy to straddle the fence on this issue considering Fournette’s a Top 5 lock when he’s draft-eligible. Colin Cowherd supports his belief that Fournette should sit out based on the position that he plays:

Fournette shot down the idea of sitting out the 2016 season on Tuesday night: