BEAVERS TRYING TO KEEP HEISMAN HYPE IN CHECK.

Byline: Bob Rodman The Register-Guard

CORVALLIS - The Beavers have traveled this Heisman highway before.

Steven Jackson is the latest Oregon State athlete whose name is being linked to the chase for college football's grandest prize.

First came Terry Baker.

Forty-one years ago, he parlayed his 1,738 yards passing and 538 more yards rushing with Oregon State's 9-2 record that included a Liberty Bowl win over Villanova into a trophy-winning combination.

In 2001, smack dab in the middle of the high-tech age, OSU settled Ken Simonton in the award's starting gate.

The Beavers ponied up $100,000, half of it supplied by donors, and went to work in August. Videotapes, CD-ROMs, notepads, his own Web site on the Internet and more pages of statistics than you can shake a computer at descended on the media.

Simonton was wired for satellite time throughout fall camp, teleconference calls were plugged in and live interviews were ready to go from any stadium - home and away - when the season began.

Then the season began.

On a sweltering September night in Fresno, Calif., Simonton's race for the Heisman was detoured. For good.

The Beavers rolled into the San Joaquin Valley as Sports Illustrated's choice for No. 1 in the nation. Fresno State had other ideas. Simonton, who had rushed for more than 1,000 in his first three seasons, was held to 42 yards and OSU was drilled 44-24.

"The Heisman went out the window in the first half of that Fresno State game," said Hal Cowan, the long-time sports information director at Oregon State. "Ken was put in a position to fail, and you don't do that. I think all that stuff did more harm than good."

The plan was devised by Mitch Barnhart, then the OSU director of athletics. His intentions were good. The plan, hindsight suggests, was not.

"You have to win (the Heisman Trophy) with what you do on the field," Cowan said. "You don't buy or manufacture the vote. Our job is to get the information of what a player is doing out there, but the reality is that your team has to be in the hunt for a BCS (Bowl Championship Series) bowl berth."

In 2001, Simonton struggled dearly but failed to rush for 1,000 yards. The Beavers also struggled and finished with a 5-6 record, a hard fall after the remarkable 2000 season's 11-1 record, No. 4 national ranking, a share of the Pac-10 Conference championship and win over Notre Dame in the Fiesta Bowl.

"But I think we learned our lesson," said Bob De Carolis, who replaced Barnhart when the latter left to become the director of athletics at Kentucky last year. "We put the cart before the horse. Our focus went away from winning the game and instead to winning the Heisman.

"Campaigning doesn't work."

Consensus all but insists that when the more than 1,000 voters cast their ballots by Dec. 10 and the announcement of the winner is made on Dec. 13, the decision will have been based on how the individual and his team did during the regular season, and little else.

The 20-year-old Jackson is the real deal. A junior tailback from Las Vegas, he won the Pac-10 rushing title last year with an OSU single-season record of 1,690 yards. After six games this season, Jackson leads the conference and is second in the nation with 877 yards.

He leads in all-purpose yards with 1,080. He leads in scoring with 60 points, the result of nine rushing touchdowns and one receiving.

He can charm the watch right off your wrist with his engaging grin, twinkling eyes, shoulder-length dreadlocks and a gentle presence despite his 6-foot-3, 233-pound frame that usually requires three or four defenders to bring down.

"But Steven will tell you the team is the most important thing," De Carolis said. "If you're just trying to win the Heisman and you take away from what the team is trying to accomplish, it's not right and it's not going to work."

So, the Beavers- 5-1 and sharing the Pac-10 lead at 2-0 with Washington coming to town on Saturday - are borrowing a page from USC's guide on how to run in the Heisman race.

The Trojans quietly waited for the Trojans and quarterback Carson Palmer to make their moves.

"The way USC did it with Palmer last year was the way to do it," Cowan said. "It was wait and see."

Tim Tessalone, USC's veteran sports information director, said Palmer was never considered a Heisman candidate before the 2002 season began but "the team got hot and Carson got hot at midyear. The other hyped candidates were not separating themselves."

That when USC went to work. Sort of. Mailouts included a card fashioned like a ticket with Palmer's picture, stats and other information on it. Phone calls and e-mails supplied awareness and updated statistics.

Total cost? "About $200," Tessalone said. "There was no budget for this."

And who won? The Trojans, with an 11-2 record, and Palmer, who passed for nearly 4,000 yards and 33 touchdowns and led a beating of Notre Dame on national television just before the Heisman vote.

Palmer threw for 425 yards and four touchdowns as USC clubbed the Irish 44-13.

Timing is everything.

"The kid kept playing well, the team kept playing well (USC finished the season with eight straight wins) and the Notre Dame game was huge," Tessalone said.

De Carolis cited three elements required for a successful completing of a Heisman race.

"The individual has to have a stellar season," he said. "The team has to have a stellar season. And you have to have national exposure at the right moment."

Tessalone said a little karma doesn't hurt, either.

"Maybe the moon and the stars were aligned properly," he said. "If the voting had gone a week earlier or a week later, Carson might not have won."

And maybe Jackson won't.

"But," he said, "it's been my dream for 13 years."

Jackson is saying and doing all the right things. "I have put it (the Heisman issue) in the back of my mind. I've had some attention but the team has to win,' he said.

"The team is the most important thing. It's different here than it is at USC, but everybody will get to know me as we go along."

Oregon State coach Mike Riley said his plan is "just practice to win our games and not focus on anything else or talk about that (Heisman) stuff.

"Steven will be in contention but it will only be the result of us doing well."

HUNT FOR THE HEISMAN

Oregon State's Steven Jackson is among the early leaders in the chase for the coveted Heisman Trophy

Name University Year Position

Jason White Oklahoma Sr. Quarterback

Kevin Jones Virginia Tech Jr. Running back

B.J. Symons Texas Tech Sr. Quarterback

Larry Fitzgerald Pittsburgh So. Wide receiver

Steven Jackson Oregon State Jr. Running back

CAPTION(S):

Oregon State's Steven Jackson has carried the burden of the offense so far this season.