LAKE FOREST, Ill. -- Jordan Howard’s sudden NFL success comes as no surprise to those close to the Chicago Bears' fifth-round pick.

“We got out there in the fall in his junior year of high school, and we played one game, and I started calling people I knew and telling them this kid is going to be a 10-year NFL veteran,” said Chris Fancher, who coached Howard two years at Gardendale High School, located in a suburb of Birmingham, Alabama.

Fancher’s proclamation sounded extreme back then, but through almost three-quarters of his rookie season, Howard resembles a player about to embark on a long journey in professional football.

“I never doubted that I would make it here someway, somehow. I never lost faith,” Howard said.

In another lost Bears season, Howard has been one of the few bright spots.

Jordan Howard tallied 127 all-purpose yards against Tennessee, the fifth time he has gone over 100 yards from scrimmage in his rookie season. Jonathan Daniel/Getty Images

Howard entered the year third on the Bears’ running back depth chart behind Jeremy Langford and Ka’Deem Carey, but Langford’s high ankle sprain in Week 3 opened the door. Howard proceeded to kick it in. After Langford went down, Howard rushed for 100-plus yards four of eight weeks. He currently leads the Bears with 766 rushing yards on 149 carries (5.1 yards per attempt).

Howard tallied 127 all-purpose yards in last Sunday’s 27-21 loss to Tennessee -- the fifth time he’s gone over 100 yards from scrimmage in 2016. He also finished with 99 total yards in Week 11’s defeat to the New York Giants.

By his own admission, Howard needs to clean up the drops out of the backfield, but he still has 22 receptions for 242 yards and one touchdown.

“Some guys pick it up quicker than others,” Bears quarterback Jay Cutler said. “He’s shown the ability to have him get better and better as time has gone on. I think as games go on, he gets stronger and stronger. He sees things better and better. He’s fun to play with.”

A quiet and unassuming rookie out of Indiana via Alabama-Birmingham, Howard’s running style reminds many of former Bears back Anthony Thomas, who earned the nickname “A-Train” for battering opponents with a bruising, downhill approach.

“Jordan is a kid that when he plays, his momentum grows as he plays,” Indiana coach Kevin Wilson said. “He’s not a guy that is going to flash at the combine with a bunch of stats. He’s going to flash in the grind and wear-and-tear of the games and of the season. The more he played, the stronger he got. The more he played, the better he got. In our environment, it was really neat to see him get stronger as the games and the season went along. It was pretty impressive.”

While Thomas was considered one of the nation’s top prep running backs when he enrolled in Michigan in 1997, Howard took a more unorthodox route to the NFL.

After transferring to Gardendale following his sophomore football season, Howard had a terrific junior year for his new school, but a hip injury robbed him of the opportunity to attend summer camps at some of the largest universities in the region.

Making Every Carry Count Jordan Howard, who has been one of the Bears' few bright spots this season, ranks fourth in the league in yards per carry among running backs. Mark Ingram 5.30 Jay Ajayi 5.26 LeSean McCoy 5.22 Jordan Howard 5.14 ESPN Stats & Information

“I talked to every school out there,” Fancher said. “Everybody had him set up to come out there in the summer of his senior year -- North Carolina, Alabama, Tennessee, Georgia. All he had to do was go run for them, because his film was unbelievable.

“I told everybody he’s a 4.6 guy. He’s not 4.5. He’s not 4.7. He’s a 6-foot-1, 205-pound 4.6 guy. The coaches at Alabama said, if he does that when he’s down here, we’ll offer him. They said that reminded them of Eddie Lacy. [But] Jordan [had the] hip injury senior year, so he couldn’t really do the camp circuit.”

For Fancher, Howard’s contributions extended beyond the football field.

“A week before the season starts in Jordan’s junior year, I have to dismiss our best wide receiver,” Fancher said. “So this group of kids on a Monday late in the season, they decide they are going to boycott practice because they didn’t like who was playing quarterback. Again, they’re all friends of this one wide receiver, and they literally disappear.

“That night I went over to Jordan’s house and asked him why he didn’t walk off too. He said what they did was wrong. I asked him why he felt they were wrong. He told me that it wasn’t that they disagreed with me -- people can disagree -- but you are the coach. You did what you felt was right. Jordan is a kid of great character.”

Without high-profile collegiate offers, Howard stayed close to home and accepted a scholarship at UAB.

“He was everything you could ask for,” said UAB coach Bill Clark, who took over the program following Howard’s freshman year. “He came to work every single day. He’s very intelligent. He was the whole package, just like you are seeing now for the Bears. He’s a great runner, and he caught the ball out of the backfield.

“It wasn’t like we didn’t know what we had. It was one of those things pretty quickly on where I said, ‘We can’t get this guy hurt.’ He’s that good.”

Howard distinguished himself at UAB, running for a combined 2,468 yards and 15 touchdowns over his freshman and sophomore seasons. He quickly became a leader by example.

“I coached Kennard Backman, who played for Green Bay, and he came back to UAB after last season, and he said one of the guys he really looked up to was Jordan Howard,” Clark said. “Kennard was a senior, and Jordan was a sophomore. I think just how he trained and how he worked resonated with the team.”

Howard says he prefers actions, not words, as a way to inspire teammates.

“I’m not a vocal leader, but I lead by example,” Howard said. “I know people are watching what I’m doing, so I want to do things the right way.”

Just when Howard had settled in, UAB’s administration threw everyone a curveball. The university shockingly announced the football program would be shut down, making Howard and his teammates the college equivalents of free agents.

Notre Dame, Iowa and Louisville all expressed interest, but Indiana proved the best match for Howard. The Hoosiers had just lost 2,000-yard rusher Tevin Coleman, who left early for the NFL and was a third-round pick of the Atlanta Falcons.

“When we got the official word from the Big Ten that you can contact [the UAB players], we reached out immediately,” Wilson said. “This is in early December, late November. Our running backs coach [Deland McCullough] went to Birmingham and camped out for a day and met him.

“Jordan is a very quiet person, very serious person. Deland is the same personality. There was an immediate connection. And from there, it took Deland about a month to earn his trust. But it was a little bit of luck. We were on him early because we needed a running back. As soon as it happened, we had what we needed to move quickly.”

As Howard describes it, he and McCullough just “hit it off.”

“We got along pretty well,” Howard said. “A lot of people tell me that Coach McCullough and I are just like each other.”

So much alike, Wilson wondered what would happen when Howard visited campus.

“We talked about his recruiting visit, putting him with Deland, and no one would say anything the whole time,” Wilson said with a laugh. “They’ll just sit there and look at each other.”

Howard rushed for 1,213 yards and nine touchdowns for the Hoosiers before passing up on his senior season to enter the NFL draft. The Bears took him 150th overall.

“He’s a very mature kid,” Wilson said. “He’s probably more mature than some of the 30-year-old veterans.”

Howard’s maturity stems from his family life. Howard’s father passed away at age 52 from pulmonary fibrosis when Howard was just 12, putting more pressure on his mother, Flora, to keep the family together.

“I haven’t been on this journey myself,” Howard said. “My family has been with me through every step. They come to mostly all of my games, and they always support me.

“My mom is a determined lady. She is my biggest role model. She is so determined that she never lets anything get in her way. She did anything she could for me, no matter the sacrifices she had to make."

Those sacrifices clearly paid off.