It's a question University of Wisconsin football coach Bret Bielema used to hear frequently from fans.

Why can't the Badgers recruit a highly ranked quarterback?

"I've only been here for four (years), I can't say what's been done in the past," said Bielema, who just finished his second year as coach after two years as defensive coordinator. "The one thing I always appreciated about Wisconsin when I was going against them is the quarterback was always a guy who could win.

"Bottom line, you're assessed on your results at the end of your career, not at the beginning."

If the question isn't coming as frequently as it used to, Bielema has his 2008 recruiting class, which will be officially unveiled on Wednesday, to thank for that.

The Badgers have 23 known commitments and the one fans and recruiting analysts seem most excited about is quarterback Curt Phillips, from Kingsport, Tenn., who is already enrolled at UW.

ESPN Scouts Inc. has Phillips, 6-foot-3 and 212 pounds, as the second-highest ranked player in UW's class, behind defensive end Tyler Westphal of Menasha, who ranks No. 147 on its top 150 national list.

"I think (Phillips) is one of the true sleeper prospects in this class," said Tom Luginbill, National Recruiting Director for ESPN Scouts Inc. "Not only can he run it, he can throw it. He's got great size.

"I think this is the prospect, in this class, people are going to wonder, 'How did we miss on that guy?' ''

Phillips set a prep record in Tennessee with 4,008 yards of total offense as a senior. He completed 63.9 percent of his passes (161 of 252) for 2,115 yards and 16 touchdowns. He also ran 238 times for 1,868 yards and 39 TDs. He led Sullivan South to a 12-2 record, losing in the state semifinals.

That's the kind of quarterback the Badgers may not have been able to attract before opening up the offense in recent years under offensive coordinator Paul Chryst, who recruited Phillips.

"A lot of people have the perception Wisconsin's offense is just hand the ball off to the running back and let him run," said Jeremy Crabtree, the national recruiting editor for Rivals.com.

"It's not a school that's known for going out there and throwing the ball around. We 've seen them open it up a little bit more here and utilize the quarterback. That's why it allowed them to go out there and get a pretty good quarterback in this year's class. "

Another Tebow?

Phillips, who was named the Gatorade Player of the Year in Tennessee, is ranked as the No. 7 dual-threat quarterback in the nation by Rivals.com. Crabtree agrees with other recruiting analysts who think Phillips might be better than his ranking.

"Curt Phillips is one of the most under-ranked and under-valued kids, by a lot of people, in the Southeast," Crabtree said. "When you watch him on film and you watch everything he brings to the table, you can see why Wisconsin jumped in on him early.

"This is a good get. It's going to fit more and more with what they 're wanting to do with their quarterbacks."

The player Phillips is most often compared to is Florida quarterback Tim Tebow, a comparison Sullivan South coach Stacy Carter does not back down from.

"He's not as big and strong as Tebow right now," Carter said. "Of course, he's young. But he benches over 300 (pounds) and he does some stuff like that.

"In some ways, he's got more sheer running talent than (Tebow) does. But he's a quarterback, before anything, don't get me wrong. He's a thrower, before everything. That's just kind of a bonus with him, running the football."

Carter is still mystified how Tennessee let Phillips get away. The Volunteers showed interest but were in the running for higher-rated quarterbacks and didn 't offer. The Badgers liked what they saw and Phillips committed last summer, when his only other offers were from Kentucky, Duke, East Carolina and Middle Tennessee State.

Why not UW?

The fact the Badgers could attract a prospect like Phillips shows they are making progress. That's been a sore spot for fans, despite the team's success, who have wondered why UW hasn't had a quarterback make an impact in the NFL since Randy Wright played for the Green Bay Packers from 1984 to '88. Two other former UW quarterbacks are current NFL backups, Brooks Bollinger with Minnesota and Jim Sorgi with Indianapolis.

"I think the perception in (recruits') minds is cold,'' Wright said. "They watch (Packers quarterback) Brett Favre play on Sunday and it 's 2 degrees below zero, and they say, 'Running school, I'm never going to develop, so why go there?' ''

Wright disputes the notion UW hasn't attracted quality quarterbacks in the past. Darrell Bevell, Mike Samuel, John Stocco and Bollinger were mostly known as effective game managers who had varying degrees of success passing.

"I think sometimes the perception is not true to reality," Wright said. "Although they may have struggled at times to get some of your top-five, top-10 (quarterback) recruits, I think some of the kids they've had in the last 10 years have turned out to be pretty good quarterbacks. I would say, maybe they were miss-evaluated coming out of high school. Maybe they were better than some of the recruiting experts gave them credit for."

It's not hard to trace the roots of UW's problems attracting top quarterbacks. The state does not produce a lot of them. Tyler Donovan, from Hartland Arrowhead and the starter as a senior last year, was the first player from the state to start at quarterback for UW since Green Bay's Bud Keyes started the first four games in 1987.

So, it's hard to argue with Barry Alvarez's decision, when he arrived as coach in 1990, to build his offense around beefy linemen and running backs, which were in abundance in the state.

Yet, longtime followers of Badgers football will recall, in the 1950s and early 1960s, UW was on the cutting edge of passing attacks in the country and John Coatta was the first Big Ten quarterback to throw for more than 1,000 yards in 1951. So, it can be done here.

Wright believes, as long as Chryst sticks around -- or if he leaves, Bielema finds a similar replacement -- this will become an increasingly attractive place for quarterbacks. Chryst's reputation for working with quarterbacks is growing, especially with the success last season of Cleveland Browns quarterback Derek Anderson, one of his pupils at Oregon State.

"Bret Bielema and Paul Chryst may open it up, but that just takes time to show it's not a one-year fancy," Wright said. "I think (the perception) will change, if Bret's committed to doing it and as long as Paul Chryst is here ... because this system has proven it will work.

"It only takes one or two guys to jump up and change things. ... I think time is the biggest healer of that misconception."