In a matter of days, UW’s 2010 commitment list has doubled. Defensive end Jake Irwin and offensive tackle Dallas Lewallen have verbally committed to become Badgers. Now I recently wrote about how ecstatic Badger fans would be to see the commitment of Frank Tamakloe, a four-star, big-name prospect, but these new commits won’t garner nearly as much immediate excitement. In fact, these commitments might have some fans scratching their heads.

The five-star players rarely commit to UW, but the in-state, under-the-radar types, are never in short supply. Irwin and Lewallen are both from Wisconsin and they both have zero offers from any other division one schools. That’s right, zero scholarship offers. Both prospects came to UW’s high school camp, picked up their first offer, and decided to commit pretty much on the spot.

Now this type of recruiting news is what Badger fans are used to, and this is what confuses a lot of fans. But it is this exact recruiting strategy that keeps UW successful without bringing in the top-flight guys.

According to reports, Irwin came to camp and just dominated. The 6-foot 4-inch, 255-pound prospect was apparently unblockable at defensive end and the coaches were impressed. The other commit, Dallas Lewallen, is about as under-the-radar as you can possibly get. He didn’t even make a highlight tape to send to coaches. The Badger staff only knew of him from the camp he attended last summer. Again, Lewallen just performed better than the other offensive linemen and displayed a great frame at 6-foot-6 and 285-pounds. The coaches clearly didn’t want to let Lewallen perform at another school’s camp, so they locked up a prospect they thought highly of.

These two prospects got barely any exposure and the recruiting web sites had hardly even heard of them, but the coaching staff doesn’t base their decisions on these web sites. They bring in these hard-working prospects who develop in the program and turn out to be contributors.

Head coach Bret Bielema could go out and put all his effort into luring some of the top-100 prospects, but realistically those kids are nearly impossible to get. Wisconsin is not going to have a top-ten recruiting class any time soon, so it’s the no-name prospects, unknowns like Jack Ikegwuonu, Jonathan Casillas, and Mike Newkirk that make this program competitive (all those guys were thought of as two-star prospects). Irwin and Lewallen are proud to be Badgers and fans should be happy to have them.

They may not get the exposure that would earn them a bunch of scholarship offers, but the coaches see potential and it’s the upside these sleepers possess that can make a good recruiting class a great one.