Some universities prefer quieter efforts, reasoning that while fans might embrace flashy campaigns, voters tend to have all the information they want. Aside from tweets and videos that seem to flow from just about every college sports program, their maneuverings might be almost entirely focused on private conversations with voters and efforts to position their most promising players for interviews with news media outlets that often handicap the Heisman race.

“It’s really not a whole lot different than politics: Perception is reality,” said Paul Finebaum, an ESPN commentator who is among the voters who doubt the efficacy of modern campaigns. “We all think we’re really smart, but we’re not. We’re going to be heavily influenced by what’s literally right in front of us and what other people think.”

Huston concedes that it is impossible to know with certainty how many votes can be swayed by an active Heisman campaign, but he believes the efforts can shape the outcome.

“It’s really hard to quantify the influence, just like it’s hard to quantify how well a certain ad might do for Verizon,” said Huston, who used to run a website that tracked the annual race and worked on some of Southern California’s Heisman campaigns. “I think for schools that rightly err on the side of doing one, it could have an effect. If it’s really good, it could have a really good effect.”