By BILL SMITH

I'M 79 years old and have opinions. And since I'm a dinosaur, they are strong ones.

Here are a few concerning college football in general and West Virginia University football in particular.

First, I want to preface this by saying I am a big WVU fan and think new coach Bill Stewart and his staff are doing an excellent job of preparing the nationally ranked Mountaineers for another national title bid. It will be exciting.

But I picked up last Friday's Daily Mail and read a story about Stewart's "road game planning." It was an article about the Mountaineers traveling to Washington, Pa., (about 45 minutes from Morgantown) after their Friday practice and staying in a hotel to simulate the night before and morning of a road game.

Stewart called it a "dry run." It was one of the most ridiculous stories I've ever read.

The coach talked of teaching his players how to get on a bus, where to sit, to see if they can get along with their roomies, and how to act.

He said: "They won't know if we don't teach them."

Say what?

You gotta be kidding me. Did Stewart really say that? I guess he did or the Daily Mail's Mike Casazza wouldn't have written it.

I thought these athletes were young adults, not 3-year olds, and college students to boot. I know they let almost anyone into college anymore, but my lord . . .

Well, you know the rest.

The entire scenario brings up a bone of contention I've had for years with big-time collegiate football. The persons in charge live in a fantasy world. They take their teams to hotels the night before home games to isolate them from fans and students.

Aren't they really students? Don't they have beds of their own on campus?

Those jaunts require chartering buses and feeding the players dinner and breakfast. Now, I don't know what it costs to charter buses, buy food for an entire football team and its staff, and put them up for the night in a hotel. I'll bet we're talking about more than a few thousand dollars.

Enough of those trips and you're talking about real money.

WVU used to go to Lakeview Resort. I assume it still does. It goes there, or somewhere else. I know that Florida State goes to Georgia the night before home games.

For crying out loud, it doesn't even spend the night in its own state.

Coaches will insist that isolating the teams gets them away from distractions and in the right frame of mind. Bull.

If you're an athlete and you're prepared, when it comes to time to play, you play. A famous coach once told me, "All that frame of mind and rah-rah stuff lasts until you get knocked on your butt for the first time."

If colleges can waste money like that, they have too much money and they ought to quit begging boosters every year for donations and stop raising ticket prices.

Most persons I know are concerned with the high cost of gasoline and rapidly rising prices in the supermarket. They're trying to save a buck. I know I am.

And here is WVU approving a waste of money for a "dry run."

If I were the athletic director, it would be a cold day before I would put my stamp of approval on something like that.

What I would do is have the coach call a team meeting and instruct the players on how they are to represent the university. Anyone who conducts himself otherwise will face consequences.

As for how to get on the bus . . . well, the players will have to figure that out for themselves. If they can learn a playbook, they can certainly learn that.

What college teams do is called keeping up with the other guys. And then there's the business of million-dollar salaries.

But that's another story.

Smith is a former Daily Mail sports editor.