The candidate stands off-camera, tie crooked and shirt untucked, yawning and feeling lost. In a few moments, the cameras will roll and everyone will see the polished version, but the real Antwaan Randle El is like this: still sleepy and struggling with his tie while polishing off a cherry Slurpee. "Hey, help me here," he says. "Is my tongue all red?"

Randle El is at this Indianapolis television station to launch his candidacy for the Heisman Trophy. He knows he's not the perfect candidate, and that's why he's spending a brilliant springtime Sunday afternoon taking his message to the people early. "I'm ready to do what it takes to win the Heisman now," Randle El says.

Well, almost ready. His tie is still crooked. His campaign manager, Indiana sports information director Todd Starowitz, reknots it as Randle El asks, "What am I talking about here again?"

"The Heisman, the position switch, playing wide receiver, life," Starowitz tells him. "Remember: team, team, team. And don't fidget or speak too fast. Look up, not at the ground. Sit up straight. Breathe. Speak clearly. Enunciate."

"Uh-NUN-see-ate," Randle El goofs back.

Starowitz fixes Randle El's collar and steps back for a final look. Hmm. Something's wrong.

"Uh-oh," Starowitz says. "Purdue colors." Randle El, the greatest quarterback in Indiana history, is wearing a black tie and an old gold shirt. A Hoosier in Boilermaker threads is like Hillary Clinton sporting an elephant pin. Starowitz shakes his head. "How could you wear Purdue colors?"

Randle El winks: "God won't be too mad. I wore this to church, too."

***

The folks in Bloomington are either onto something or just on something -- the IU athletic department is shelling out more than $100,000 for the Heisman campaign of a wide receiver who has never caught a pass. But for a program practically devoid of tradition, the most expensive Heisman blitz ever should be well worth the price.

The Randle El camp believes in its candidate. Supporters point to his three years as the Hoosiers' record-setting quarterback, when he became just the second D1 player (along with Southwestern Louisiana's Brian Mitchell) to pass for 5,000 yards and rush for 2,000 in a career. Randle El was a playmaker behind center, not just a passer or a scrambler. A playmaker.

Randle El is no Heisman poseur. He has charisma forged by a lifetime in the spotlight. He's one of the most versatile athletes ever to wear Hoosier red: the Cubs' 14th-round pick as a high school outfielder in Riverdale, Ill., and one of IU's best defenders during his two years as a point guard for the basketball team. He's handsome, with sharp eyes and a smile that lights up much of the state (the non-Purdue, non-Notre Dame part). Plus, he's graduating in four years.

And he can take a pounding. Randle El has started at QB in all 33 games of his career despite being targeted Saturday after Saturday. Against Illinois last year, he stepped back for a trick punt. After he booted the ball away (55 yards away), eight different Illini took shots at him. It was so ridiculous that after he watched the game tape, Illinois coach Ron Turner called Indiana coach Cam Cameron to apologize. Randle El still rushed for 209 yards and four touchdowns. Says Minnesota coach Glen Mason, "Just imagine what he would be like playing at Nebraska, with that sort of supporting cast."

Although he's just 5'10", 190 pounds and not very fast (4.59 in the 40), he stops and cuts quicker than an eye twitch. Ask him how he pulls off a twist-after-spin-after-juke move, and he shrugs: "The D made me do it." Even if Randle El does not win the Heisman -- and at this point he's among the longest of shots -- it's a good bet he'll be more fun to watch than the guy who does.

But no matter how electric his play, Randle El knows that only one Heisman winner (Paul Hornung, Notre Dame, 1956) has played on a losing team. "I want to win the Heisman," he says. "But I can't do it going 3-8 every year." Three times last fall, Randle El watched the Hoosiers' defense (ranked 112th in the country) gag up late leads on the way to IU's sixth straight losing season. After getting waxed by Purdue, 41-13, in the season finale, Randle El drove home, planted his face in his pillow and imagined himself in an NFL uniform in 2001. "I was ready to go," he says. "What more could I do here?"

So he filled out the papers to go pro and actually signed on the line, but then two things happened. First, scouts informed him that he was projected as a fifth-rounder, and that he'd be drafted as a receiver but that an entire season as a college wideout could move him into the first or second round. Then Cameron, desperate for a winning season, approached him to ask what it would take to get him to stay.

When the coach and star met in December, they bargained -- and Randle El had leverage. He told Cameron he wanted to move to receiver and return punts, but still quarterback in the red zone -- and he wanted the power to pull the plug if the switch failed. After all, he could have gone to Notre Dame as a receiver. He came to Indiana to play quarterback. Cameron said he would devise an offense in which Randle El could catch 100 passes and still play quarterback when it mattered most. He also tried to sell Randle El on four juco defenders he had plucked to save one of the nation's sorriest units.

But when Cameron mentioned a Heisman campaign as a sweetener, Randle El's jaw muscles got weak. "I was thinking, the Heisman Trophy, it's unreal," Randle El says. "Woodson. Howard. Sanders. Those are guys I watched. Can you imagine? I felt like all I had given was coming back. It was time for them to think about me." With that, the coach secured his star, and the star left the football offices daydreaming of a senior season.

***

Ahem. Purdue colors? "I still can't believe it," says Starowitz, who used to run public relations for Bob Knight. (And you thought no one did.) It's 30 minutes after the Indianapolis TV interview, and the candidate and the campaign manager are kibitzing over dinner.

"How'd I do?" Randle El asks through a mouthful of barbecue.

"Pretty well," Starowitz says. "You can always speak slower than you think you are speaking. And there were a couple of 'ya knows' in there."

If there's anything that ruffles the Randle El camp, it's the "ya knows," "I means" and "whatevers" the candidate inserts midsentence. His verbal pauses are so common that Starowitz occasionally keeps a running chart during interviews and displays the results on a board in the sports information office. The unofficial record is 40 "ya knows" in a three-minute interview.

"And it's 'ask,' " Starowitz says.

"What do I say?"

"You say 'axe.'"

"Axe? Aa-sss-kk. Ask. Ask."

The bright lights not only highlight Randle El's charms, they reveal his quirks. In an interview seat, he's a little like a baby in a high chair -- rocking back and forth, as if hoping to trigger a switch that will make the chair spin. He bites his lip and tilts his head. He plays with his hands and clicks his tongue. Occasionally, a question will truly engage his interest, and he'll wave his arms, going on and on, his sentences never meeting a comma or period. "He used to talk so quickly in the huddle that we couldn't understand what play he was calling," says tackle A.C. Myler. "We'd be like, 'Slow it down, 'Twaan, slow it down.'"

Randle El had no idea football would ever merge with Public Speaking 101. "I understand why it's important, ya know? [That's one.] They want me to appear right, to look good, to speak clearly. But I'm just going to be myself through this entire season, all the interviews. I don't curse -- well, a little on the field. I don't drink. I don't smoke. I don't party. Plus, ya know [two], I know how to tie my own tie." He loosens the knot he didn't tie and winks.

***

Cam Cameron hit the campaign trail seven months before the season's start, not just to raise Randle El's profile, but to raise money for the campaign's war chest. "Antwaan is the most exciting player I have ever seen," he says. "We're prepared to make sure he gets noticed for the player that he is."

A few days before Cameron spoke to the Varsity Club on Feb. 11, Starowitz and athletic marketing director David Lovell unveiled a 52-point plan for the campaign, broken down month by month through December. Miami's Ken Dorsey and Nebraska's Eric Crouch can simply show up for kickoffs this fall and get exposure. Indiana must create the opportunities for Randle El to get behind the microphones and generate the ink.

This spring and summer he will sing the national anthem at a Cubs game, parade at the Indianapolis 500 and show up at every photo op with kids that he can. Most of Cameron's season-preview TV show will be devoted to Randle El's position switch. And come September, there will be two media guides, a poster, billboard ads, a bumper sticker, notebooks, weekly postcards, a CD-ROM and a mouse pad, all featuring Randle El. There is one Web site (www.athletics.indiana.edu/twaan4heisman) already covering every facet of his career, and another will feature nothing but highlight videos.

So maybe they're overdoing it a little. But can you blame the Hoosiers for getting excited? Indiana hasn't been to a bowl or provided a first-round NFL pick in seven years (Thomas Lewis, Giants, 1994). Last year, home crowds averaged just over 30,000, barely half of Memorial Stadium's capacity. Plus, the university desperately wants national attention for someone other than its flowerpot-hurling former coach. "We need something to rally behind after the Knight stuff," says Lovell.

There's also the matter of redemption. In 1989, Indiana tailback Anthony Thompson rushed for 1,793 yards and 25 touchdowns but finished second to Andre Ware for the Heisman. The athletic department admits it blew Thompson's shot at the trophy. His Heisman campaign consisted mostly of him being tossed before the media with no help. Thompson, feeling alone and burned out, would often duck out of the locker room early and avoid the sports information office altogether. "I had a lot of pressure on me to make it look like all the attention was fun," says Thompson, now IU's running backs coach. "It wasn't. I hated it. One good thing for Antwaan is that he's more comfortable with it all. Because dealing with the media is as important as putting up numbers."

***

This fall, the Hoosiers' triggerman outside the red zone will be Tommy Jones, a 6'3", 241-pound junior with a smart-bomb arm. Jones is everything Randle El isn't: patient, inexperienced and rooted in the pocket like an oak tree.

Right now, the switch looks good. In the spring game, Jones completed 15 of 25 passes for 162 yards. Randle El caught five passes for 37 yards, rushed four times for 36 and returned one punt for 22. Oh, and he completed 10 passes for 150 yards and two scores. "Look what he did," Jones says. "I really, really think this can work."

But Randle El still isn't convinced that his hours of running routes and catching passes from a Jugs machine will actually help his team, his numbers or his Heisman hopes. "When I'm a quarterback," he says, "I'm in ultimate control, ya know? It's hard to let go. I'm used to being the one who's bringin' it every play."

A few hours after the spring game, Randle El and some teammates visit a gym full of screaming grade schoolers. "I've got a lot going on this year," he says beneath the high-pitched din. "Even if this switch doesn't work -- put it this way: I'm going to be in contention for the freakin' Heisman."

Teammate Craig Osika quiets the youngsters. "I'm the center on the team," Osika says. "I snap the ball to Antwaan, Mr. Heisman, our quarterback. Or not anymore, I guess. Now, Antwaan's playing wide receiver, not quarterback anymore."

At that, Randle El smiles. And, standing behind his center, he winks.

This article appears in the June 11 issue of ESPN The Magazine.