Coming into the season, every ESPN analyst and insider was hot and heated over the stud-filled quarterback class that most believed would transpire into at least five signal-callers being picked in the first round of April’s NFL Draft.

And one of those select few was going to win the most prestigious award in college football, the Heisman Trophy.

Well, not anymore, because many, almost all, of the heralded quarterbacks are either shy and don’t want the obvious attention of being a Heisman candidate and are idiots for doing so or need dog shockers tagged around their necks to remind them of the difference between a good decision and a terrible one – except one “unknown” signal caller from the Big Ten.

1. Chris Simms is the first name that appears because he starts even when kids in Pee Wee football can throw more accurately and with more common sense than the former phenom from Franklin Lakes, N.J., does. I, along with hundreds of thousands of Texas alums, am beginning to believe that he either has a chemical imbalance that causes him to make idiotic decisions like Gen. Westmoreland or he is colorblind. The Texas pretty boy should never see the playing field on a Sunday, and if he does, any and every football fan should start attending church services instead.

2. Florida quarterback Rex Grossman makes the list, but this cannot be solely blamed on him. It is becoming growingly obvious Steve Spurrier’s system was more effective than Tae-Bo. Grossman, however, has completed more violent falls to the ground than touchdown throws. It could be quite possible that he has lost five to 10 years of his life due to his lineman having ADHD.

3. Dave Ragone has not played bad, but his performances haven’t been on par with what was expected from a 6-foot-5, 240-pound quarterback. Yet the Louisville star could attribute the lack of expected success to the fact that he basically throws the ball too hard, seriously. Cardinal receivers look they have been struck in the chest with jagged rocks thrown by radicals from Northern Ireland the day after their games.

But Ragone still has a bright NFL future and pro receivers shouldn’t have trouble holding on to his laser-beam throws; well maybe the Bears’ David Terrell would.

And the winner of the 2002 Heisman Trophy is …

There is a great risk by voicing my meek opinion on this because my father and friends will more than likely disown me and there is a good possibility that this is also grounds for being shipped to Hell after death, but a player from Iowa deserves the honor.

That Hawkeye is Brad Banks, who wasn’t even the starting quarterback last season. The junior-college transfer is the NCAA’s top man as far as passing efficiency. So far this season he has tossed to 23 touchdowns and has been picked off just four times. That is an amazing ratio and is as nearly lopsided as the male-to-female ratio at SIUC.

The jet-quick quarterback isn’t one-dimensional like the many running quarterbacks who can only scramble and end up throwing the pigskin like Mr. Burns after an enema. Sometimes it is more uncomfortable to watch running backs, which most basically are, try to throw, but Banks doesn’t leave viewers crying in front of the tube.

Somehow he has led Iowa to a one-loss season so far and given the Hawkeyes a great opportunity for a BCS bowl game. And if the unbeatens continue to get beaten, they may even have a shot at the national championship – my brain is hemorrhaging from that thought and blood is leaking from my nose in extreme amounts.

But aside from that, leading a team that wasn’t even in a bowl last season to national contender grabs your ears and screams into them – leadership! If you can’t hear it, then sorry, you are deaf.

His Kari Strug moment came when Iowa was trailing Purdue 28-24 with less than two minutes left on the game clock. Banks led Iowa on an 87-yard drive in 1:08 to down the Boilermakers. How much does he mean to the Hawkeyes? He contributed 89 yards, two extra yards than the total distance of the drive. There isn’t a more important player to a team than Banks, period.

Playing huge games in front of a national television audience should prompt him to the lead like a living Secretariat doped on andro, and I shouldn’t sound like a nutcase for endorsing him, join me.

“Over the past three or four weeks our media relations have been sending out mailers to media and voting people across the country,” said Rick Klatt, associate athletic director of External Affairs at Iowa. “Since so many of our games have been televised, the media have been able to see Brad and make their own decisions.

“I think he deserves an invitation to New York. He has taken a team that was predicted sixth or seventh in the preseason to a possible Big Ten championship.”

This is the hardcore truth and is scary, mainly because I am awaiting something disastrous like a meteor the size of Alaska and Texas combined being shot toward Earth or Iraq developing allies in China and Russia. I thought the Cubs would win the Series before a Hawkeye would claim the Heisman, but for some reason I had to get my father’s integrity instead of his height and I call them like I see them, which makes Banks the true leading candidate for the Heisman, in my eyes at least.

Now I have to go vomit and check the sky.

Zack Creglow is a freshman in journalism. His views do not necessarily reflect those of the Daily Egyptian.