Not to be outdone by any means, Baylor has released a brief video called ‘Lightning’ which highlight’s Robert Griffin III’s superlative athletic ability (he is also a world-class intermediate hurdler).

Another fine effort by the Baylor sports information department, which has been on top of things all year long on RG3′s behalf.

Have a look:

Another day, another video from Stanford.

It’s been a busy week for the media relations department at Stanford. First, they put out a long video of Cardinal coach David Shaw making his case for Andrew Luck, now they have released another (shorter) video on Luck’s behalf.

As a long time aficionado of Heisman campaigns, this final push by Stanford’s is as impressive a campaign as I’ve seen. I’ve always been a big believer in telling a player’s story from new and interesting angles. Advancing a narrative in a consistent, convincing and compelling manner makes for a very effective campaign. Stanford has done just that.

In this video, Stanford doesn’t just list a bunch of stats. It talks about how Luck is a unique player due to his ability to call plays at the line of scrimmage. It takes the time to demonstrate it. It’s a daring theme that makes you think and, I must say, it is quite convincing. Above all, it is a brilliant response to all those who have criticized Luck’s performance this year.

Have a look at perhaps the best Heisman video I’ve ever seen:

It’s not every day that you see a head coach go to the mat to the extent that Stanford’s David Shaw did on Andrew Luck’s behalf in the video below.

There have been a lot of creative Heisman promotions over the years, but this might be one of the most intellectually effective I’ve seen. The most telling aspect of this presentation, in my mind, is that it shows a tremendous lack of ego on Shaw’s part. Most coaches are egomaniacal control freaks who are normally reluctant to share this much credit to any one player. But Shaw pretty much says here that Luck called 90 percent of Stanford’s plays this year. He was literally an offensive coordinator on the field.

I wish the other coaches involved in the race took the time to give the same kind of insight. To me, this elevates the Heisman discussion quite a bit. I’d love to see Nick Saban break down what makes Trent Richardson so special, or see what Art Briles has to say about Robert Griffin III.

The video is a bit long and I probably would’ve condensed it a bit, but it’s interesting and gives a rare insight into how a pro-style offense works. People always complain that the Heisman is based on fluff…well, this is the opposite of fluff.

Will it convince Heisman voters? Because it gets away from the mundane stat crunching of most campaigns, I think it’s quite effective. It sells one theme: That Andrew Luck is doing something no other player is doing…and doing it very well.

There’s a healthy debate going on in the comments section of this blog between supporters of the various Heisman candidates.

For the most part, the focus is on statistics.

Statistics.

Sigh. They are a slippery slope. Rely on them too much and they become almost meaningless.

Voters do not care about about statistics past a certain point. You are not going to convince someone that Player X is better than Player Y because X played in five games against top 23 opponents while Y played in only four.

Voters look for players to meet a minimum threshold of statistical prowess. Once they pass that point, they are deemed statistically worthy and their numbers do not become a real issue again unless they are chasing major records.

Do a few voters find it meaningful that Matt Barkley has 39 touchdown passes while Andrew Luck only has 35? Possibly. Are they sophisticated enough to understand that such stats don’t always tell the whole story? Absolutely (note, Heismandment No. 6, the Andre Ware Rule). If numbers really did tell us everything, Texas Tech would have won five of the last 10 Heismans and Kliff Kingsbury would be a college football legend.

We mostly use stats to confirm our preexisting biases. Those who consider a player’s status as an NFL-ready product to be prima facie proof that he is the best player in college will tend to gravitate toward Luck. Those who believe Luck plays in an effete conference that doesn’t play defense will see every interception of his as proof of his fraudulence. Those who think that SEC defenses are automatically the best in the country will view Trent Richardson’s 203 rushing yards against Auburn as proof that he is an incredible back. Those who see SEC defenses as being overrated will downplay his accomplishment by noting that Auburn’s 99th-in-the-country run defense gave up more yards to Utah State than they did Alabama.

And what do we do when we can’t find stats to support our opinions? Why, we just create a new stat. Parse away!

But all these numbers and comparisons can be overwhelming.  That’s why, in the end, voters also rely on things like imagery, reputation, biography and even stereotype to determine the most worthy player. Actually watching the games helps them assess how a player does something as opposed to just what he does.  Desmond Howard scoring a touchdown on a punt return is nice. Howard returning the punt and then striking the Heisman pose while Keith Jackson says ‘Hello Heisman!’ is sublime. If this constant search for meaning and understanding in college football didn’t exist, all we’d have to do is look at the box scores to pick the Heisman winner and be through with it.

Consequently, the player who wins the Heisman usually isn’t the season’s stat king, but the player who best exemplifies the spirit of that particular college football season. That’s what the voters are looking for, even if most don’t really know it deep down.

So if you want to know who’s going to win the Heisman, just consider which player has captured the zeitgeist of 2011 college football. You can’t go wrong.

Maybe it’s not a perfect way to pick the most outstanding player, but it works for me.

The penultimate Heismanpundit Straw Poll will be released early on Tuesday, or as soon as I receive a couple votes that are still straggling. I wanted everyone to make note of a couple things before we take the results and run with it:

1. Three candidates still have big games left to play. Robert Griffin III and Baylor host Texas, Montee Ball and Wisconsin take on Michigan State in the Big Ten championship tilt and Case Keenum and Houston will face Southern Mississippi in the C-USA title game. With about 90% of voters expected to vote after the final game, things could still shift one last time. As it is, this week’s poll is shaping up to be extremely close, making it unwise to call the race before these games are played.

2. Remember, while my final poll has been the most accurate Heisman poll in the last three years, it also tends to be more volatile than the Heisman electorate as a whole. This is why I add my own personal analysis to the mix, which takes into account the historical trends and traits of the 925 voters (as articulated in The 10 Heismandments), as well as my gut feel on which players are winning the PR battle across the six voting regions. This is why my own analysis is sometimes at odds with the poll results (though they usually converge at the end). That said, my panel of 13 voters is uniquely qualified to give us an accurate snapshot of what the electorate as a whole is thinking. It is comprised of beatwriters, regional columnists, national commentators and magazine editors from every region. Some have been voters for just a few years, while others have been voting for decades. They all take their vote seriously. In other words, it’s a pretty good microcosm of the larger pool of voters out there. I hope they can produce an accurate result once again when we poll for the final time next week (knock on wood).

3. I am especially curious about how the results will shake down this year because it is the third race of the Twitter Era and the events of the 2009 campaign are still fresh in my mind. That year, I picked Colt McCoy to win the Heisman in my final Heisman Watch, but my final poll picked Mark Ingram (with almost eerie accuracy). Where was my own analysis faulty? Well, I under-estimated the extent of Ndamukong Suh’s late-breaking support. I failed to gauge just how much his performance against Texas in the Big 12 title game ignited his once-dormant campaign on Twitter and (to a lesser extent) Facebook.  It was all anyone and everyone was talking about. As it turned out, he surged enough to knock off McCoy in the Southwest Region–a defensive tackle beating the Texas QB, and in his home region of all things!–a feat that cost McCoy the Heisman in what turned out to be the closest race ever (people forget that, while Gerhart lost to Ingram by 28 points, McCoy was just 159 points behind Ingram in third.  So a lot of Suh’s 815 points came at the expense of McCoy).

I think we are headed for a similarly dramatic and close race, with as many as three players having a legitimate shot at being named the winner when that nice gentleman from the Heisman Trust opens the envelope from Deloitte and Touche.

There’s a good chance the winner may not have the most first-place votes, which happened most recently in 2008 when Sam Bradford won and, before that, in 1978 when Billy Sims won.

Rest assured, there are a few more twists and turns to go. I am encouraged by the enthusiasm in the comments section and I hope everyone keeps it up. I’ll do my best to illuminate what’s actually happening in the race and, of course, this will be the place get all the best Heisman-on-the-spot coverage beginning next week when I’m in New York with my staff to cover the ceremony.

Now back to our regularly scheduled programming…