Oklahoma Sooners quarterback Josh Heupel has played there.
So have Cincinnati Bengals running back Corey Dillon and Auburn running back Rudi Johnson.
But when they played in the Dixie Rotary Bowl, they were still making names for themselves. Now they are bona fide superstars.
"I think there are a lot of people who don't understand (the talent level at junior colleges)," 19-year Dixie State College coach Greg Croshaw said. "There are a lot of good players who have come through this league (Western States Football League) on a weekly basis, not just in bowl games."
Heupel was a sophomore at Snow Junior College in 1998 when he threw for 208 yards and three TDs in the Badgers' victory over Dixie College.
Johnson rushed for a Rotary Bowl record of 370 yards and seven touchdowns in the 1999 edition when Butler County beat previously unbeaten and No. 1 ranked Dixie in what was billed the national championship game.
Dillon played both for and against Dixie in his two Rotary Bowl appearances. The first was in 1994 when his Garden City team lost to the Rebels, 26-21, but the following year, after transferring to Dixie, the Rebels, with Dillon, beat Nassau Community College, 42-6.
"Sometimes when you play teams from around the nation, you run into guys that are a special cut above," Croshaw said. "And we've had one or two ourselves."
The same could be said for Saturday's 15th Annual Rotary Bowl, when the Rebels (7-3) meet 8-2 and 15th ranked William Rainey Harper College (Palatine, Ill.) at noon at Hansen Stadium in St. George.
The Rebels are making their 14th Rotary Bowl appearance and 16th bowl appearance overall (11-4 record) under Croshaw, who is 163-47 at Dixie.
Former Brighton High star and BYU running back Junior Mahe could be one of those guys that is a cut above the rest in the 2000 Rotary Bowl. He has just under 1,400 yards receiving and just under 400 rushing for the Rebels. Add in his return yardage, and he's well over 2,000 all-purpose yards.
Now, Heupel is the quarterback for the 11-0 and No. 1 ranked Sooners, who take on Kansas State in the Big 12 Championship game Saturday.
Heupel, a legitimate Heisman Trophy candidate, has thrown for more than 3,000 yards for the second consecutive year and is currently ranked seventh in the nation in passing efficiency with a rating of 149.7.
A win over the Wildcats would put the Sooners in the national championship game.
Dillon, with his 278 yards rushing in the Bengals' 31-21 win over Denver earlier in the year, broke Walter Payton's 27-year-old record of 275 yards in a single game. He was only the 11th player in NFL history to rush for more than 1,000 yards in his first three seasons and eighth to break 1,100 yards in the same span. In 1997 he was the only rookie to break 1,000 yards.
As a freshman at Garden City (Kansas) he rushed for 1,167 yards and the following year at Dixie he rushed for 1,899 yards.
In his lone year at the University of Washington, he broke Napoleon Kaufman's single-season rushing mark with 1,555 yards and Rashaan Shehee's single season TD mark with 22 scores.
Johnson, the 1999 NJCAA Player of the Year, in currently fifth in the nation in rushing with the Tigers with 1,520 yards and 13 touchdowns.
Besides those three, Archie Amerson, the 1996 Walter Payton Award winner, and current Hamilton Tiger-Cats (Canadian Football League champions in 1998) running back played in the Rotary Bowl, as did Barry Simms (starting OL for the Oakland Raiders), Alfred Pupunu (Detroit Lions and San Diego Chargers tight end) and Kalin Hall, former NJCAA Player of the Year, and former BYU and Las Vegas Posse running back.
E-MAIL: jhinton@desnews.com