If you had told me on the first of September that I would vote for USC quarterback Carson Palmer to win the Heisman Trophy, I would have smirked, "Yeah, and Notre Dame will win 10 games."

I might have said, "No, I'll be voting for Brad Banks," but no one outside of Kinnick Stadium had ever heard of him.

	Carson Palmer gets the nod -- and the Heisman vote -- over Brad Banks and Willis McGahee.

If you had told me on the first of October that I would vote for Palmer, I would have said, "Did you see him at Kansas State? Remind you of any Trojan quarterback of the last two seasons?"

Yet there I sat at this laptop this week, mulling over why I shouldn't vote for Palmer, who, like the world's slowest butterfly, spent four-and-a-half years shedding his chrysalis to become a wondrous sight in the air. Palmer took so long to emerge he could have been ordered up by the Pentagon.

He picked the right season to be a late bloomer. Preseason hype, long the enemy of a fair Heisman fight, had no effect on the outcome. As was the case with Palmer and Banks, tailbacks Willis McGahee of Miami and Larry Johnson of Penn State had done little to recommend themselves as candidates before this season. Only Dorsey, who finished third last season, and Marshall quarterback Byron Leftwich began the year with a head start.

The result is that there has never been a truer Heisman race than the one that will culminate Saturday night in Manhattan. It will be so tense at the Yale Club, you would think you were in an elevator with Trent Lott and Maxine Waters.

Or maybe Dennis Franchione and Mal Moore.

If you had told me on the first of November that I would vote for Palmer, I would have said, "Wait a minute, I just saw Banks treat Michigan as his personal scout team. Michigan!" The Hawkeyes gave the Wolverines their worst beating in the Big House since 1967. Banks only got better as the season continued. He went 10-for-10 against Northwestern. He led Iowa to an unbeaten Big Ten season.

It wouldn't be until Veteran's Day that anyone outside of Heritage Hall took Palmer seriously as a Heisman candidate. The knock against Dorsey is that the Heisman is not a career award, so Dorsey's 38-1 record as a starter is irrelevant. The same reasoning kept skepticism of Palmer at Washingtonian levels. Yes, he had a couple of good games, but isn't this the same quarterback who has spent a career reading defenses as if they were written in Hebrew? Isn't this the quarterback who began this season with as many touchdowns as interceptions (39)?

When a passer accumulates such numbers over three-plus seasons (Palmer received a medical redshirt after suffering an injury early in the 1999 season), it's generally a sign that he will never improve. But as this season continued, the lights on Palmer's front porch went from dim to halogen. He sounded like a confident quarterback. He told every interviewer that he got angry if the Trojans didn't score on every possession.

By last weekend, I narrowed my field to Palmer, Banks and McGahee (I received a lot of e-mails from readers wanting to know why I wrote last Saturday that I would vote for McGahee. What I wrote is that McGahee, not Dorsey, should be the top candidate from Miami. I didn't say I would vote for him. I hadn't made up my mind yet.).

Leftwich is an outstanding quarterback, and may be a better person. However, the calf injury that knocked him out of one game in November and limited his effectiveness in another gave me a reason to toss him out of my pool. Dorsey didn't impress me as much as Banks or Palmer.

Johnson, as did Palmer, saved his best football for the second half of the season. But Johnson finished fourth in my three-man race because he did his best work against the poorest defenses that the Big Ten had to offer. That doesn't mean it's easy to rush for 279 yards in a half, as Johnson did against Michigan State, but the contrast in the way that Banks played against Michigan, or that Palmer played against UCLA and Notre Dame, swayed my opinion.

Johnson's finish notwithstanding, McGahee is the best tailback I saw this season. How to measure his achievements against those of Palmer and Banks? The arguments that Dorsey's partisans in Miami made on the Hurricane quarterback's behalf stuck with me. Leadership, running an offense, making decisions that prevent losing -- all of the assets applied to Dorsey also applied to Palmer and Banks.

McGahee wins my bronze medal. I typed him on the third-place line on my e-mail ballot. And then there were two. The same reason I used not to vote for Johnson made me decide to vote for Palmer. USC played the toughest schedule in the nation, according to the BCS rankings. Iowa's schedule ranked no better than average.

Palmer.

Banks.

McGahee.

Of course, if you had told me on the first of December that I would find a good use for the BCS formula, I would have said, "Yeah, and Iowa and USC will play the Rose Bowl in Miami."

Ivan Maisel is a senior writer for ESPN.com. E-mail him at ivan.maisel@espn3.com.