CYBERSPORTS A COST-EFFECTIVE HEISMAN TROPHY E-CAMPAIGN.

Byline: - Tom Hoffarth

Pretend you're one of the thousands of befuddled Heisman voters who this week decided it's about time to get on the stick and start doing some actual research before scribbling in a few names on the ballots due at the end of the month.

No worry. The Internet offers plenty of crutches for the project.

Starting with the Downtown Athletic Club of New York official site (www.heisman.com), they've got their own alphabetical list ``top contenders (that have been ranked) by several media sources.'' From their current list of 10, however, it's pretty clear that half don't belong.

Such as Adrian Peterson, a running back from Georgia Southern. Who? Last year's winner of the Walter Payton Award (the Heisman for Division I-AA) has a school-supported site (www.apforheisman.com) that makes his candidacy look very legit. In fact, if you didn't know he was injured the past two weeks and probably won't even repeat as the Payton winner, you'd think the Heisman vote was over by what's on this site.

Another fallen-by-the-waysider is Texas Christian's LaDainian Tomlinson, the nation's leading rusher and, judging by his site (www.ltfor2000.com), a leading candidate for overhyped player of the year. Links to ``LT's World'' and ``The LT Story'' would immediately confuse Tomlinson with Lawrence Taylor. Register at the site and you'll get a free ``LT for 2000'' bumper sticker.

If the Heisman was given out based on the slickest, most technically advanced Web site, then Nebraska's Eric Crouch would easily be the front-runner. It's labeled an unofficial site (www.ecrouch.com) but that should be obvious when the title ``Eric Crouch: Destined for Greatness'' pops up on the screen.

The sites for Virginia Tech's Michael Vick (www.michaelvick.net), Purdue's Drew Brees (www.drewbrees.net) and Florida State's Chris Weinke (www.chrisweinke2000.com) are equally effective in getting out links to stories done on the players, setting up chat rooms and keeping up polls. Of those three, only Weinke's is affiliated with the school, and FSU is proud to note in his bio that he's currently the senior class student body treasurer.

Vick's site includes a link to parody Web pages done on him, including a hilarious reproduction of ESPN.com home page called ``VSPN.com'' that has story headlines such as ``Dow rises, Nasdaq slips, Vick wearing Tommy Hilfinger jeans today.''

Did we miss anyone? What about Oklahoma quarterback Josh Heupel?

A search on Yahoo! shows nothing for him, officially or fan-induced. Which, by our calculations, is probably the best way to go at this point.

The more time the guys spend playing and the less time spent feeding their innermost thoughts to some techhead will probably please the coaching staff as well as the school's media-relations department.