Rep. Joe Barton of Texas has introduced a bill essentially mandating a college football playoff:

He said the bill — being co-sponsored by Reps. Bobby Rush, an Illinois Democrat, and Michael McCaul, a Texas Republican — “will prohibit the marketing, promotion, and advertising of a postseason game as a ‘national championship’ football game, unless it is the result of a playoff system. Violations of the prohibition will be treated as violations of the Federal Trade Commission Act as an unfair or deceptive act or practice.”

This whole Plaxico thing just reeks of boneheadedness, which is painful for Heathen Central to admit given our affection for the Giants generally and Plaxico specifically (Burress has been our favorite player for a while, an honor that is predicted predominately on “which productive NFL player on a team we like has the funniest name.” (The runner-up is Atari Bigby in Green Bay)).

Consequently, the light this event shines into Plaxico’s fucktardery is, well, disappointing to us. The entire affair is error on error on error in a chain that could have, at any moment, been broken and thereby prevented the near-certain incarceration endgame.

So, in the order he probably committed them, a brief survey of stupid Plaxico tricks:

1. “I’ll wear a shit-ton of jewelry worth tens of thousands of dollars to a loud and chaotic night club where snatch-and-run type thefts are easy to perpetrate, and I’ll do this on the off chance that someone around me may of missed the fact that I make a fuckload of money by being one of Eli’s favorite targets, and — oh yes — I caught the winning TD in the Super Bowl last year.” Stupidity rating: 3. Lots of people, especially people who come from below the upper-middle-class, have a tendency to suffer from Wife of Bath syndrome in an effort to show everyone how well they’ve done. Pro athletes are particularly vulnerable, and it’s hard to completely condemn the practice for this reason. However — and I say this as someone dumb enough to have regularly stumbled home drunk from Egan’s wearing my dad’s Rolex — wearing flashy jewelry in a club like that is just silly.

2. “Because I have to wear such fancy jewelry to illustrate my station in life, I must also carry a gun to protect same.” Stupidity rating: 6. Plax jumps a lot here, since he’s making a bad assumption based on a bad assumption which compounds the whole affair. Carry a gun because you HAVE to go someplace where you don’t feel safe, sure. But creating a situation you perceive as dangerous (wearing the jewels into the club) and then compounding that danger by carrying a gun as well makes you pretty stupid. Better to avoid the danger in the first place, but therein you see how the chain develops.

3. “I have no reason to bother with registering this firearm.” Stupidity rating: 8. Carrying a loaded gun without a permit in NYC is a felony. Dude, you’re rich as metric FUCK; hire a security service if you need to wear 30 pounds of gold out in public. Carrying just tempts fate, and fate can be a bitch.

4. “I’m going to pick a gun to carry based on popular culture and not on my specific carry needs.” Stupidity rating: 5+ (see below; this plays into point 6, below). This is inferred, but at least a few reports suggested that Burress was carrying a full-sized pistol; there appears to be no dispute that it was a Glock in .40S&W. All Glocks, even the small ones, are double-stacked — meaning they’re much wider than many more carry-appropriate guns. You can get a 9mm or even .40 that’s far slimmer, and that will fit neatly in one’s pocket; when you’re carrying on the sly, concealability is paramount, and absent a proper carry rig, being able to slip it in your pocket securely is pretty important.

5. “Wait, you mean you can get carry rigs that work in just about any set of clothes, from inside-the-waistband holsters to full shoulder clutches to fanny-pack setups?” If you’re gonna carry, SECURE THE MOTHERFUCKING PIECE. Plax did NOT do this; he was apparently trying to carry a double-stacked Glock in the waistband of his sweatpants. WTF, man? Stupidity rating: 9.

6. “I’m gonna go ahead and keep one in the pipe just in case despite lacking a real safety or a real carry rig.” Stupidity rating: 10. Most folks who carry probably DO keep a round in the chamber, but they’re probably using real gun leather, or a pistol with a more affirmative safety mechanism than the Glock has. Plax dropped his gun and, in fumbling for it, pulled the trigger. The Glock’s safety is IN the trigger, which one source of criticism for the pistol’s design. There’s no click-on, click-off safety at all. This means carrying a Glock with a round in the chamber without a secure rig is really, really, really stupid; had he picked a safer gun, a real holster, or carried without a round in the chamber, none of this would have happened. (I.e., if Plax had just dropped the gun and avoided shooting himself or anyone else, nobody would have ever known.)

7. “Now that I’m at the club, wearing loads of jewelry, and carrying a gun, I’d better go ahead and get drunk.” Stupidity rating: 10. In Texas, by the way, carrying a gun EVEN WITH A PERMIT into a place that makes more than 51% of its money selling booze is also a felony. This is NOT a bad law. Carrying when you’re drunk is a bad, bad idea — no good can come from it.

Plax is going to jail. What he’s really going to jail for is being a fucking idiot, given how many choices he could have made differently in this sequence. “Skip the jewels, so I don’t need the gun” would’ve been a great start, but even “get a real holster” or “carry something with an affirmative safety” or “don’t fucking keep one in the chamber” would’ve also saved his career and kept him out of the loving arms of New York State.

Word is that Auburn head coach Tommy Tuberville is out in the wake of a disappointing season and a stunning shutout in the Iron Bowl. This is almost certainly a mistake; in 10 years at Auburn, Tuberville has produced consistently, taken them to a bowl every year since 2000, and posted winning seasons every year but his first and this one. He’s the only Aubur coach to ever beat Alabama six years in a row. His 85-40 (68%) record isn’t better than Bowden (73%, fired in 1998) or Dye (71%, forced out in an rules violation scandal in 1992), but it’s close — and n.b. that neither of those guys left voluntarily, either.

If this is true, it means four of the six teams in the SEC West will have coaches with less than 2 years tenure at kickoff next August: Mississippi State, Arkansas, Auburn, and Ole Miss. (I’d make a joke about Saban scaring them all off, but when you factor in Nutt’s move from Arkansas to Ole Miss it’s really only 3 who shuffled out of the SEC — and there’s at least some chance Tuberville might go to Starkville.)

MSU isn’t going to do better without Croom. I find it hard to believe Auburn will do better without Tuberville. Nutt might do a little better at Ole Miss than he did at Arkansas, but even that would be inconsistent. Longtime Heathen Third-Party Contract Oil insists that Petrino’s Louisville roots mean Arkansas will become an offensive power in a couple years, but even if that’s true it still means lots of rebuilding in the SEC West, which is bad for everybody because of perceptions of weakness in strength of schedule.

(Sorry, Lindsey.)

Notre Dame’s AD says Weis will be back next year.

BCS is out, and despite having BEATEN Oklahoma, this goofball system we have put Texas BEHIND Oklahoma in the rankings, which means it’s the Sooners that will whip Mizzou in the Big XII game and play the SEC champion in Miami.

Of course, we here at Heathen know that the SEC will prevail, and our home conference will enjoy its third title in a row. But suppose they don’t, and Oklahoma wins. Texas sits out the big game despite having beaten them, and the champs know there’s a team better than them down in Austin.

This whole things just stinks.

I’d have been happier with 40+ points, but a 36 to zippo shutout of Auburn ends the regular season for both teams. Auburn’s difficult year ends at 5 and 7, a game shy of a bowl slot, which suits us just fine. Tuberville may have a year left — his six-game Iron Bowl streak will probably buy him some time — but something tells me that next year won’t be much better, and the Auburn faithful aren’t likely to be very patient at that point.

Alabama, of course, improves to 12-0 and will continue to the SEC championship game in Atlanta next Saturday against one-loss Florida. Meyer’s Gators are hot, and have played very well since their shocking loss to Ole Miss, so the game is likely to be quite a brawl. The winner there will for certain go to the BCS game in Miami, meeting whomever ends up on top of the Big XII South. All three contenders in that division won their games this weekend, though only Texas‘s 49 to 9 over A&M was truly authoritative; Texas Tech needed a big late-game rally to escape Baylor, and Oklahoma allowed 41 points in their 61-point win over Oklahoma State. (Frankly, the confusion may actually be all hype: after the drubbing from Oklahoma and the scare from Baylor, smart money says Texas Tech is out of the running for good — and Texas has already beaten Oklahoma in the regular season, which ought to get them into the Big XII game ahead of the Sooners.)

Elsewhere, LSU continued their downward slide with a 31-30 loss to Arkansas, which we’re certain will give the Tiger Boosters a bit of heartburn considering what they’re paying Les Miles.

Next door in Mississippi, the Egg Bowl turned into a 45 to nothing slaughter that also ended Croom’s career there. I hate seeing the preppie bastards in Oxford win that game, but you can’t argue with 45 unanswered points and Houston Nutt’s near-immediate success in his first year there.

On the other end of the coaching spectrum, as always, is Notre Dame’s Charlie Weis. Just a year after an embarrassing 3-9 season, and only a week out from a collapse for the ages against 8-loss Syracuse, the Irish gave up 38 points against the USC Trojans in a pathetic excuse for a game that has pundits all over calling for Weis’ head. The bad news for the ND athletic department is that apparently Weis’ contract buyout is friggin’ huge. Look for several more years of Irish mediocrity with or without Weis; their lackluster performance goes back further than Weis’ tenure.

To say people viewed the Oklahoma – Texas Tech game with interest would be a wild understatement. Pretty much nobody outside of Lubbock has been happy to see Leach’s boys get this far with no losses, and Heathen Nation has been right there with ’em. Smart money said that if the Raiders could get past the Longhorns, then the only team likely to stop ’em would be Oklahoma — but pretty much everyone also expected a fairly hard-fought game.

Well, on that point at least, pretty much everybody was dead fucking wrong, as the Sooners managed to steamroll Texas Tech like a farm league team. Nothing the Raiders did worked; Oklahoma could do virtually no wrong, and by halftime it was very, very clear that Tech was no longer in the running for any championships — Big XII or national. Final score: 65 to 21, and it wasn’t that close. Tech’s final TD came with the Sooners’ bench on defense, and the Sooners’ played without starting QB Sam Bradford for the final quarter. Oklahoma improves to 34 and 1 under Stoops in home games, which is quite a stat.

This old-skool ass-whippin’ was utterly unforeseen, as we said; smart money said that if Tech lost, it would create a three-way tie in the Big XII South, leading to wailing and gnashing of teeth as folks tried to figure out who best deserved a shot at Miami. By folding up like a cheap suit, Tech eliminated themselves — and Texas beat Oklahoma already. By the time the BCS rankings came out last night, nobody outside of Norman was expecting anything other than what we got:

1. Alabama
2. Texas
3. Oklahoma
4. Florida
5. USC

Yeah, some west coast nerd had to shove the Trojans in there. Tech drops to 7. Penn State’s a slot behind them at 8. Still-perfect Boise and Ohio State round out the top ten. (Amusingly, the AP poll puts Florida at #2, followed by Oklahoma, Texas, and USC; USAToday sees 2-5 as Oklahoma, Florida, Texas, and USC — but neither poll matters.)

Texas still has to beat unranked A&M and get to the Big XII game against Mizzou to play in Miami, but it’s not that simple; the Longhorns don’t exactly control their own destiny. Ties in this conference are broken by BCS standings, and that’s where things get woozy.

Should Oklahoma win convincingly over their 9-2 cross-state rival Oklahoma State, they’ll get lifted in the BCS model — but Texas’ last remaining game is against a helpless 4-7 Aggie squad, and beating them won’t impress anyone. The BCS gap between the two is small enough that even a slight increase in Oklahoma’s rating relative to UT could push them into the #2 spot and the conference game. The only certain thing is that it’s the Big XII South vs. the SEC in Miami; the North division hasn’t won since Kansas State in 2003, and Mizzou isn’t gonna break that streak (they already lost to Texas once this year, back in October, to the tune of 56 to 31).

Elsewhere, a couple other lovely things happened. Well, I say that, but when Ole Miss and LSU play, I really sort of wish both could lose. This time around, though, it was the Rebels winning big over a Tiger team clearly on tilt after some rough losses, but still ranked #18 going into the game. After the 31 to 13 drubbing, though, LSU’s nowhere to be seen — and Ole Miss popped up at 25 on the AP.

And where would a Heathen football comment be without some Notre Dame hate? We’ve got you covered: the Irish managed to suck out against coachless Syracuse, 24 to 23 at home in South Bend. This is a collapse of almost Texan proportions, as the Irish led 23-10 in the fourth quarter.

The Orange improve to 3 and 8; it’s the first time EVER for ND to lose to an 8-loss squad. They’ll still be bowl eligible at .500 assuming they lose, as expected, to USC in their season closer — which sets the stage for the Irish to extend their (NCAA record) winless streak of bowls to an even TEN. The 2007-2008 two-year span also boasts the most losses of any such span in program history (14, and they haven’t played USC yet). But keep Weis up there, Irish. Really. We’re sure this is gonna work out just fine, and don’t worry about the restless natives:

The Irish players were pelted by snowballs on the sideline for much of the first quarter by fans sitting on the student section. Defensive end Ethan Johnson was struck on the left cheek and several other players also getting hit by snowballs despite three announcement urging fans to stop.

The Irish were booed several times during the game, including Clausen on Notre Dame’s next-to-last possession when third-and-8 the Syracuse 31 he missed a wide open David Grimes.

Weis is at 28 and 20 over 4 seasons, or batting about .583; ND aced the last two coaches in that statistical neighborhood, but Weis still has 7 years left on his contract.

Oh, and the historic multi-year collapse of ND is actually showing up on non-sports blogs now. This pleases us at Heathen Central, as do a couple stats from the article the blogger links:

• ND has beaten only one team with a winning record this year: perennial powerhouse NAVY.
• The combined record of the teams ND has beaten this year is 18-46.
• Under Weis, the Irish are 12-17 against teams with winning records.