They have been handing out the Heisman Trophy since 1935, including during World War II, so it is probably asking too much to expect the Downtown Athletic Club to refrain from handing out the hardware this year. But who could blame it if it opted to forget the whole thing?

The DAC would never consider that. It's not because there are so many deserving candidates that someone has to be honored, but because there is a lot of money at stake and so somebody's got to leave with the award. This is not yet the Pizza Hut-Doritos-GE-Ben-and-Jerry's Heisman Trophy, but it still is an award around which a lot of money swirls.

It has become the basis for a TV awards show that is nothing more than a waste of air time because seldom do the truly best college players appear (read that linemen,  offensive and defensive).

That being the situation, someone will be handed the award Saturday night because if they didn't give it out, what do you do with all that dead air time? But let's face it, this Heisman class is like the Democratic Party. It doesn't have a winning candidate.

More than likely, Oklahoma quarterback Jason White will win, but how can he be the best college football player in the land when he's not the best college quarterback in the land? What does he do, play defense, too?

If you ask NFL scouts, White is not even the second- or third-best college quarterback for that matter, so how can he end up with the Heisman Trophy?

The same applies to Michigan running back Chris Perry. Perry is a finalist for the award but most scouts feel Carnell "Cadillac'' Williams, a junior running back at Auburn, is far superior. They would say several other backs are, as well. Best player in college football? Hardly.

Of the names being mentioned as finalists, Pittsburgh wide receiver Larry Fitzgerald is probably the most deserving, but most college football experts do not expect he will win it. NFL scouts use one word whenever his name comes up. That word is "special.'' One would think the same should apply to the winner of the Heisman Trophy, but often it has not, and this appears to be one of those years.

No disrespect to past winners, but just how special was Miami quarterback Gino Torretta in 1992? Was he special or was the talent around him so overwhelming he just won a lot of games by being there? Judging by when he was drafted and how short his pro career was, “special” hardly seemed an accurate description.

What of Eric Crouch in 2001 or Chris Weinke the year before? Were they really the best college football players in the country or did they just happen to be guys who played quarterback on some of the best teams? Is that what the Heisman Trophy is supposed to be?

Then there was Ron Dayne in 1998 and Danny Wuerffel in 1996 (are you kidding me?). There are other examples, but the year that seems most like this year is 1994 when a running back named Rashaan Salaam of Colorado won the Heisman because they had to give it to somebody or not hand it out at all. The latter would have been a better idea, by the way.

If one looks at the first round of the NFL draft that year, the only player taken who became a certifiable star was Rams' running back Marshall Faulk. None of the other No. 1 picks became what their teams hoped they would and only a few even became regulars, so one can see the Heisman voters’ dilemma that year. What that seems to argue for is skipping the whole idea for a year, and this seems to be a similar season unless the Heisman voters want to do something really radical and select the truly best player in college football.

That could mean he's not necessarily a player from a Top 20 team. He may not play a glamour position. Maybe he's someone like Miami tight end Kellen Winslow or an offensive or defensive lineman. Do you think there's a chance some 350-pound tackle or defensive end is a better college football player than White, Perry, Fitzgerald, Eli Manning or Matt Leinart, USC's quarterback?

If the Heisman is going to eliminate defensive players (one has to conclude it has since the only one who ever won was Michigan cornerback Charles Woodson in 1997 and he also was well known as a kick returner and wide receiver) and it's not going to give the slightest consideration to extremely productive small college players, what's the point of calling it an award for "the outstanding college football player of the year in the United States.''

Why not just call it the skill positions award? Or the big-time program's skill position award, to be more accurate? If that's the case, and there is such a wide divergence of opinion on who that should be, what's the harm in saying they'll just wait until a year when there are clearly one or two deserving candidates? Meantime, we'd rather not honor the next Pat Sullivan or the future John Huarte or the heir to the legacy of Ron Dayne. We'll just wait until next year and see what we come up with.

If the Downtown Athletic Club ever did such a thing, of course, ESPN would dissolve into apoplexy. After all, it has a TV show to do. So do the other networks that televise big-time college football. They have all have invested considerable time and money in debates over who should be crowned the next Heisman Trophy winner.

So someone will be given the award as the outstanding college football player of the year even though they have no idea who that is. Know that whoever they name will not be considered so by men paid millions each year to evaluate the college talent before importing it into the NFL.

That being the case, maybe it would be fitting if the eventual winner is White because he has an outstanding story even if he isn't the most outstanding college football player. His is a tale of personal resolve and grit after coming back from two terrible knee injuries that seemed to have ended his career.

When the season began he was considered one of the few question marks in the Oklahoma offense. Even though his speed is now long gone, he threw for 3,744 yards and 40 touchdowns with only eight interceptions. In the opinion of most NFL personnel men, that won't make him the first quarterback drafted next April let alone the first college player taken, but his is at least an uplifting story, so maybe that's reason enough to give him the Heisman.

Just don't claim whoever wins it this year is the best player in college football  because that guy probably wears No. 55 or No. 70. Just say the winner a good story, played on a good team and, after all,  we had a TV show to do that doesn't attract viewers if it has five fat guys with big necks sitting in the front row.

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