BCS buster Utah rolled Southeastern Conference power Alabama in the Sugar Bowl thanks, in large part, to stars plucked from the California community college football ranks.

The Utes — who finished the season undefeated and are aching to claim a share of the national championship with the winner of today’s BCS title game between Oklahoma and Florida — have over two dozen California JC recruits filling key roles a Mountain West Conference team couldn’t possibly fill with incoming freshmen straight out of high school.

Former Oklahoma and Dallas Cowboys head coach Barry Switzer, appearing on the Fox Network BCS studio show during the Sugar Bowl, said, “There’s not a single player on Utah’s roster who would’ve even been recruited by Alabama.”

The Crimson Tide wins with five-star high school talents. Utah wins with the best freshmen they can recruit and, then, community college transfers who mature in their two years after high school and come ready to plug holes in the non-BCS schools’ lineups.

“That’s no knock on Utah,” Switzer said. “They’ve got kids who could play for Alabama right now, they just wouldn’t have been recruited by Alabama coming out of high school.”

Hundley on NFL radar

Arizona recruited Napa’s Marquis Hundley after the cornerback starred at Santa Rosa Junior College. Hundley had a banner season, then starred in the Wildcats’ bowl win, and is in position to be selected in the NFL draft where a gifted cornerback is a prize commodity.

The 6-foot, 178-pound Hundley is rated No. 73 out of 228 cornerbacks featured at NFLdraftscout.com. His best 40-yard dash time is 4.36 seconds, and his stock is considered on the rise as NFL teams begin to get serious about the April draft.

Consensus Draft Service predicts that Hundley will be selected in the sixth round of the NFL draft. But, the Web site states, “Hundley’s a good sized corner who can match up with bigger wide receivers. ... Has the skills to run and mirror WRs.”

One of Hundley’s weaknesses, according to the cdsdraft.com site is, “(Only) one year of major college production.”

His experience at Santa Rosa JC, which included him earning pre-season All-America honors before being slowed by injury, helped convince NFL scouts that Hundley’s a player.

The California JC system helps non-BCS teams like Utah, but it also provides athletes an alternative route to that which the typical five-star prep recruit takes to the national spotlight.

Area take on Florida’s coach Urban Meyer

One player who went from a California community college to Utah is Tennessee Titans running back Quinton Ganther.

He starred at Fairfield High, with current Green Bay Packers linebacker Desmond Bishop, before moving on to play at Citrus College in Pasadena. Ganther was recruited by then-Utah head coach Urban Meyer and wound up joining quarterback Alex Smith in leading Utah to a BCS bowl win over Pittsburgh after the 2005 season.

Ganther had an interesting take on Meyer, who has gone on to win a national championship at Florida and could win another tonight.

“Coach Meyer’s great,” Ganther said last off-season during a visit to Fairfield. “People just don’t know him. Players love him. He’ll do anything for you. He’s a good man.”

It’s interesting to get something other than a made-for-the-media view of Meyer.

Napa softball star heads for Sacramento State

Napa High softball star Devin Caldwell has accepted a scholarship offer to attend and continue her career at Sacramento State.

Like many juniors across the country are doing now, the second baseman made an early verbal commitment to the Hornets with the process of signing an official letter of intent to follow in her senior year of high school.

Sports parent nerves jangling over tryouts

As a sports parent of long standing, there remains little that jangles the nerves more than the off-spring’s first tryout for an interscholastic team. I’ve gone through the process with two older sons, but I’m still forced to call on all my coping mechanisms today with my 13-year-old son’s seventh grade basketball tryouts overlapping with my daughter’s elementary school team’s tryouts. It’s discombobulating, feeling the excitement that comes from knowing the kids’ dreams while acknowledging that getting cut from the team is a painful life lesson for a kid.

Punch knocked Gilbride off head coaching radar

Folks who wonder why New York Giants offensive coordinator Kevin Gilbride would seriously consider the Oakland Raiders head coaching job might forget that the market for Gilbride’s services as a head coach hasn’t been high since he got punched in the jaw on the sidelines by irascible Houston Oilers defensive coordinator Buddy Ryan back in 1994.

Gilbride was the Oilers offensive coordinator and, in the middle of a game, Ryan criticized Gilbride’s play-calling and then threw a punch.

Gilbride didn’t retaliate, but that altercation is more memorable to some than his ill-fated stint as head coach of the San Diego Chargers in 1997-1998, when he lost 16 of 22 games.

The 57-year-old has never really been mentioned in connection with a head coaching job since losing the Chargers job.

“He has no business coaching the pros,” Buddy Ryan once said of Gilbride. “He should be selling insurance. He’s a wimp.”

If Al Davis does hire Gilbride, it might mean another change on the staff — Raiders defensive coordinator Rob Ryan is Buddy Ryan’s son.

Forget Mike Shanahan, OK? Interim head coach Tom Cable and former New York Giants head coach Jim Fassel are more likely candidates for the Raiders job.

For whatever it’s worth, Raiders’ players seem to like Cable.

Ted Sillanpaa can be reached at tsillanpaa@napanews.com or 256-2220.