This Space is a contrarian, evidently.

Unlike America, I only like football. I am not in mad, obsessive, Kool-Aid-guzzling love with it.

With this in mind, let's run a reality-check some of last week's news ...

Item: Penn State announces its 2008 and 2009 schedules. Let's all welcome Coastal Carolina to Happy Valley.

And Arkansas State. And Eastern Michigan, 1-11 last year.

The toughest (and only road) non-conference game either year is Syracuse in '08.

Joe Paterno tells us, of course, that he's got to have seven home games a year to finance Penn State's indescribably vast athletic program, and therefore he can't make home-and-home deals with non-con opponents, and (this just in) USC isn't coming here one year unless Joe's willing to go there the next.

Joe didn't actually say that last part.

Reality: Penn State's non-con schedule is a fraud. With a 12-game regular season, Joe can have seven home games and play a representative schedule.

(There are open dates in both '08 and '09, so maybe something better is coming, but don't bet your Beaver Stadium parking space on it).

This fraud is perpetrated because Penn State doesn't have to answer to sports fans.

It answers to the Winnebago crowd clogging Route 322 on fall Saturdays, for whom Joe is Winston Churchill and Penn State football is not a sport but a social phenomenon.

Talk about your giddy Kool-Aid drinkers.

These people want opponents who won't distract them from their tailgating.

Extended season
Item: The PIAA wizards added a 16th week to high school football season in Pennsylvania a year ago. To make room, last week they cut a week off the front end of the winter sports season.

Reality: The 16th week is there because of the endless bloating of the football playoffs. But it created a three-week overlap between the fall and winter seasons, which as you can imagine created a delightful experience for multi-sport athletes and their coaches.

Even the wizards could see that was ridiculous. Their options were to tweak or even (horrors!) cut football season, or cut basketball season.

Take a wild guess.

Of course, they didn't cut the corpulent basketball postseason, which makes money for the PIAA.

They cut the regular season, in which everybody gets to play. Marvelous.

Item: NFL training camps open. Giddiness ensues. Crowds of 20,000 and more show up to sweat with the Eagles at Lehigh.

Reality: NFL training camp is so meaningless that a good soldier like the Eagles' Brian Westbrook says he, and his team, could do without it.

So meaningless that the Kansas City Chiefs have practically invited their best player, Larry Johnson, to hold out and miss the entire thing.

If you're stoked about NFL training camp, you haven't just drunk the Kool-Aid. You've dived in and are swimming around in it.

Special issue
Yet here's the July 16 issue of the Sporting News. It's a special issue: "NFL Training Camp Preview."

Big, white block letters. Not an NFL preview. An NFL training camp preview.

With, of course, "Expanded Fantasy Coverage."

The latest Sports Illustrated came in the mail Thursday, and like a quarter of it is devoted to fantasy football.

I've played fantasy one time, more than 20 years ago, in a very serious Rotisserie baseball league.

Missed the final round of the Masters for the draft.

American League only. There were 14 teams in the AL then, and 14 franchises in our league.

That meant all the players were taken. If you had to replace an injury, you'd be agonizing over the comparative merits of Kelly Gruber and Carlos Ponce.

After the novelty wore off, which took about 45 minutes, it was like processing insurance claims.

And football would be worse, because baseball stats actually mean something.

I am the only American male in the crucial 18-64 demo who doesn't want to tell you about his fantasy team.

Wish I was dating again.

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Mike Gross is a Sunday News sports writer. E-mail him at mgross@lnpnews.com.