At first glance, there’s nothing especially remarkable about Warren Herring.

Herring, a freshman defensive lineman on the Wisconsin football team, isn’t the biggest guy at his position. At 6-foot-3, 252 lbs., he’s actually among the smallest defensive linemen on the team, dwarfed — relatively speaking, of course — by the 6-foot-6, 284 lb. J.J. Watt.

Herring isn’t the most highly-touted recruit in the 2010 class, and he’s not especially boisterous, but exceptionally quiet. He has a soft voice for a man his size.

So in a sport where athletes must be remarkable — in size, skill, or sometimes, personality — to be noticed, what makes Herring remarkable boils down not to inches or pounds, but a simple decision. The decision he made and the decision his peers elected not to make.

Herring was the only 2010 Wisconsin recruit who decided to enroll early. Recruits who graduate high school early are allowed to enroll at the university for the spring semester that would normally be their last semester of high school.

As a result, they can participate in spring football practices.

It’s not uncommon for athletes to enroll early. Last year, four recruits decided to get the jump start: defensive linemen Jordon Kohout and David Gilbert, offensive lineman Travis Frederick and quarterback Jon Budmayr. Three players enrolled early in 2008.

But this year, it’s just Herring.

Gilbert and Kohout agreed that having peers to commiserate with made the experience easier.

“It helped a lot. Warren’s by himself. I had a roommate; I had someone to talk to, someone that was kind of going through the same new experiences, going from a big fish in a small pond,” Gilbert said. “To have a peer is invaluable, and he doesn’t have that.”

Although Herring has every opportunity to feel alone, his new family at Wisconsin is trying to ensure he has every opportunity to feel welcomed. Wisconsin defensive line coach Charlie Partridge said Herring’s status as the lone early enrollee was not lost on the coaching staff.

“We were very cognizant of that when he came in. We were proactive in that we asked some of our older guys to make sure and reach out to him,” Partridge said.

“You’ve got to try to be someone he can ask questions to. It helped a lot for me, just having those four guys — a lot of the time it was just the four of us in the Regent watching TV, and he doesn’t have that,” Gilbert said. “So it must really suck for [Herring], I don’t know how he did it.”

Whatever Partridge asked his players to do, it worked.

“They’ve opened their arms up like family, so I walked on in. They’ve been treating me to everything,” Herring said of his teammates.

So what does it take to sacrifice that last hurrah of high school?

While many high schoolers are in the middle of their senior slides, Herring is taking challenging college courses.

What it all boils down to for the native of Fairview Heights, Ill., is the future.

“It was pretty tough. I didn’t really get a chance to hang around with my friends and stuff like that, have fun and joke around,” he said. “It was more about business; what was most important, what was going to help my future more.”

Gilbert and Kohout both acknowledged the advantages that came with enrolling early last year. While Kohout was redshirted and put on the scout team, Gilbert played in 12 of 13 games, mainly on special teams. He had two fumble recoveries, one for a touchdown, and a highlight-reel worthy blocked punt that was returned for a touchdown against Purdue.

With the Badgers’ defensive line being the position group with the most question marks, Kohout is in line to start at defensive tackle in the fall. The redshirt freshman attributed a lot of that to getting an extra spring of practice.

Partridge noted how beneficial enrolling early can be, particularly in the case of defensive linemen. He stressed how the position relies on fundamentals — things like hand placement and footwork that can be the difference between being pancaked or getting free to make a tackle.

“The transition happened earlier so they got their fundamentals in line,” Partridge said of Gilbert and Kohout. “They’re truly a full semester ahead fundamentally. Some of the guys that are only coming out of their redshirt freshman year, they had camp and then I couldn’t coach them anymore; they were on the scout team. I was able to coach [Gilbert and Kohout] for a full spring and coach them for camp.”

But even with all the benefits of being a semester ahead of the other incoming freshmen, he doesn’t try to encourage kids to enroll early.

“I wouldn’t, and I don’t. I enjoyed the last semester of my senior year, and I don’t talk kids out of it,” Partridge said. “But I make sure they understand what they’re missing when they make that choice.

“I want to make sure they understand the sacrifice that they’re making, because if they really understand it, then they’ll come in and produce. If they come up here early and then they’re thinking about all that stuff, then really they won’t get as much out of it.”