Former Gardendale High standout running back Jordan Howard (8), now at Indiana University after two stellar years with the now-suspended UAB program, led the NCAA Football Bowl Subdivision rushing stats for the first four weeks and finished 10th overall by season's end. Howard was named to the All-Big Ten first team; he has since announced that he will forego his senior year with the Hoosiers and declare early eligibility for the NFL Draft.

Don’t look now, but a former Gardendale Rockets standout could be a long-shot candidate for the most coveted individual award in college football — as long as he stays healthy.

Jordan Howard, who put up big numbers as a running back for Gardendale and later at UAB, is on several watch lists for the Heisman Trophy for his standout work this season as a junior at Indiana University.

Howard was leading the NCAA national rushing yardage stats after the first four weeks with 675 yards, even beating out Heisman favorite Leonard Fournette of LSU at the time. His big game was a 203-yard effort against Western Kentucky.

A minor injury to his left ankle prompted Hoosiers coach Kevin Wilson to pull him out early in last week’s loss to top-ranked Ohio State, and Howard gained just 39 yards against the Buckeyes. He was held out of Saturday’s loss to Penn State because of the injury. Still, Howard is ranked 11th in the NCAA stats with 709 yards, an average of 5.6 yards per carry.

It’s enough to get the attention of plenty of football pundits and to land him early consideration for the Heisman, though the injury may ultimately knock him out of the race for this year’s award.

Fox Sports analyst Bruce Feldman included Howard among his top five prospects to win the award, though Fournette was the leader by a wide margine.

Howard is also among the top 25 in the weekly rankings by The Deseret News in Salt Lake City.

Other Heisman watch lists — most of which only go five players deep — have yet to recognize Howard, who’s now ranked second in the Big Ten rushing leaders behind the Buckeyes’ Ezekiel Elliott. Fournette is atop most lists so far, with TCU quarterback Trevor Boynkin close behind.

Howard has slipped into the spotlight of big-time college football in a most unlikely way. Ranked no better than a two-star prospect coming out of Gardendale, he ended up on the UAB roster with little fanfare. He started getting attention pretty quickly, though, running for 881 yards in his freshman year and a conference-leading 1,587 yards as a sophomore.

Then the Blazers football program was suddenly shut down, and Howard found himself as the college equivalent of an NFL free agent. NCAA rules allowed him to go anywhere without loss of eligibility, and schools that passed him over after high school gave him a much closer look.

Howard eventually settled on Indiana, and has been the flag-bearer of a Hoosier offense that’s high-scoring by necessity — their defense is a bit lacking. All but one of Indiana’s games has been decided by a touchdown or less, and lightly-regarded Southern Illinois lost by just one point in the season opener. Western Kentucky, which has acquired a reputation for beating power-conference teams in recent seasons, fell by just a field goal.

Howard hasn’t often been the man to reach paydirt, with just four touchdowns to his credit so far, but his running has put his offensive unit in position to score. The Hoosiers are averaging 35.4 points a game as a result.

But Indiana is just getting into the heart of its conference schedule. Penn State awaits this weekend, and Howard was rated as questionable for being able to play. Rutgers follows for homecoming on Oct. 17.

To be able to get attention from Heisman voters in a few weeks, he’ll have to be at his best against teams like Michigan State, ranked fourth in this week’s coaches’ poll and seventh in the Associated Press poll.

If Howard should win the Heisman this year or next, he would be the third winner from the Jefferson County Schools system — Bo Jackson from McAdory and Jameis Winston from Hueytown were the others — and the fourth from metro Birmingham when you add Pat Sullivan of John Carroll Catholic.