The glare of the spotlight on Damien Harris was once white-hot, the pressure unrelenting.

Recruiting analysts tracked his every move. Journalists chronicled his exploits on the football field. And people all over Kentucky pinned their hopes on the local teen, wishing the star running back would attend the state's flagship university.

But last Saturday, a week before he was set to play against the same Wildcats he ultimately spurned, Harris was reminded these days he's not the only promising young running back on his own team.

In the first quarter, on the fifth play of the Alabama's 48-0 demolition of Kent State, the Crimson Tide sophomore's right leg buckled when the crown of cornerback Najee Murray's helmet slammed into Harris' knee.

Harris, who was later diagnosed with an ankle sprain, was helped off the field, carted away to the locker room and never seen again. He was replaced by freshman Joshua Jacobs, who ran for 16 yards on his first carry and scored less than seven minutes after Harris was hurt. When the day was over, Jacobs -- not Harris -- was Alabama's leading rusher. He had gained 97 yards on 11 carries, producing two touchdowns in the process.

And the Tide, of course, kept rolling.

"Damien has the injury yesterday, and in typical Alabama fashion Joshua Jacobs comes in as a true freshman and rushes for nearly 100 yards," said Rivals.com national recruiting director Mike Farrell. "That's the best part of Alabama. You can never relax. You can never think you're done. You always have to continue to push and work."

Harris wasn't afraid of that. It's precisely why he signed with Alabama last year. With the Tide, he knew there would be competition and the grind that adjoins "The Process." He was willing to accept that because in Tuscaloosa he understood he could realize his dream of making it to the NFL. After all, Nick Saban's program delivers running backs to the pros like Harvard sends graduates to big-time consulting firms. Ingram. Richardson. Yeldon. Lacy. Henry. They all come through Alabama and ended up in the League.

"The track record speaks for itself," Harris said. "But you can't come in try to live off of what others have built for you. You can't just live in their shadows...You still have to work for that, you have to earn that very day."

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It was during one practice his freshman year he realized how true that really was. Harris was going through the motions in drills, when Burton Burns ordered him over to the field where the scout team was. The Alabama running backs coach thought Harris was loafing. At first, Harris was furious. He was a five-star prospect who had averaged 12.5 yards per carry and scored 118 touchdowns in high school. He wasn't meant for this. But then he started contemplating what had just happened.

Running backs coach Burton Burns looks on as Damien Harris goes through a drill. (Vasha Hunt/vhunt@al.com)

"I looked at it as in well, if he is trying to punish me, then he's obviously trying to get me to learn something," Harris said. "At this point, I knew I got a coach who really cares about me."

It was also the moment Harris realized he had made the right choice when he picked Alabama over Kentucky and Ohio State. For Harris, it wasn't an easy decision, especially having to reject the big university in Lexington located approximately 40 miles from his high school, Madison Southern.

Kentucky wanted Harris badly and so did its fans. Harris was seen as a potential savior, a player who could help turn around a program that hadn't won or shared a SEC championship in football since 1976 and was overshadowed by the basketball power on its own campus.

"There were a ton of fans that were trying to Twitter recruit, if you will or Facebook recruit, telling him that he owes it to the state, he owes it to his family to go to Kentucky," said Byron Smoot, Harris' position coach at Madison Southern who is also a narcotics detective with Lexington Division of Police.

The Wildcats were enamored with Harris. Two years ago, their coach, Mark Stoops, made a grand entrance at one of Harris' high school games by arriving in a chopper even though he could have made the short drive down I-75 in less than an hour.

Stoops' interest in Harris was understandable. According to Rivals.com, the running back was the website's first-ever five-star prospect from Kentucky -- a state not known as a fertile recruiting ground for football. Away from the field, he seemed the total package. He was crowned his school's homecoming king and carried himself with unusual maturity. His mother, Lynn, made sure of that. She was a stickler for academics and demanded Harris have his priorities straight.

"There have been many, many discussions that we have had about if he had gotten a C on something that she would talk about him not playing this week," Smoot recalled.

The discipline he was required to have in the classroom would carry over to his recruitment process, where Harris did his due diligence. In an age when kids are choosing programs based on uniforms and the apparel contracts individual schools had negotiated, Harris looked at his decision through a football-specific prism. He carefully evaluated the offensive schemes of his suitors and knew, most of all, he wanted to be featured in a pro-style system that would best prepare him for the NFL.

When he met Burns, the Alabama running backs coach made a convincing pitch that was all business.

"I'm going to teach you how to block, I'm going to teach you how to read the defense," Burns told Harris. "I'm going to teach you all these little things that will help you become a better player, not a better running back."

Harris was sold. But he knew it would be difficult to deliver the news to the Kentucky fans in his midst, confiding in Farrell about his apprehension concerning the eventual announcement.

"It was tough at times because you never wanted to make the wrong decision and you wanted to evaluate all of your options and there were a lot of sleepless nights, a lot of hard nights," he said. "I knew no matter what I did I was going to end up making the wrong decision to some people. But all that mattered to me is what fit me best."

Finally, on Jan. 9, 2015, at a ceremony at his high school, he declared he would be going to the University of Alabama, slinging a red hat with a big "A" over his hair.

He then said, "Roll Tide," beaming a smile as his mother wiped away tears.

"It came down to whether he felt he was going to try to be a local legend or go off to become sort of a cog in the machine that is Alabama," Farrell said. "I think there might be some people in Kentucky who hoped he'd go off and fail and maybe transfer back."

But that didn't happen.

Instead, he patiently waited his turn to make his mark at Alabama.

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After all of the fanfare he received in Kentucky, Harris arrived in Tuscaloosa and quickly became buried on Alabama's depth chart. Last season, he was slotted behind Heisman Trophy winner Derrick Henry and Kenyan Drake. During the Tide's 15-game march to the national title, he watched more than played, having carried the ball 46 times for 157 yards and one touchdown.

According to Smoot, Harris embraced the part-time role, "knowing he would not have to be the man right off the bat, that he would not have to be the No. 1 back, that he would actually have time to learn the college game, learn the expectations of the game and his role within the team."

"There wouldn't be that pressure he would probably receive if he went to Kentucky."

Instead of becoming the focal point, Harris was allowed to fade into the background and find himself. He watched Henry and Drake practice. He picked up tips on blocking and blitz protections. He strengthened his 5-11, 214-pound frame.

"I think that all freshmen have to go through development in a lot of ways -- personal, academic and athletic in terms of knowing what it takes to be sort of a productive player at this level relative to playing in high school," Saban said. "I think all players, all go through that. The unique guys can do it when they're freshmen. A lot of other guys, it takes a little time."

Some expected it to take even longer for Harris. For much of the offseason, Bo Scarbrough, another former five-star recruit, was pegged by outsiders as Henry's heir apparent. He appeared the perfect successor, with his bigger build. Alabama fans certainly thought as much. They were enamored with Scarbrough in part because he was the local kid from down the road.

Damien Harris was a five-star running back. (247Sports)

As they obsessed about Scarbrough, Kentucky supporters continued to bug Harris on social media, trying to bait him to react. Nearly three months after Harris was named Alabama's spring game MVP after rushing for 114 yards, he was accused on Twitter of being a frontrunner by a Kentucky fan, who said the running back could have helped Kentucky "win a title."

"It would take a lot more than just my help, trust me," Harris replied.

It would take a lot more than just my help, trust me https://t.co/8KZDgVyoiM — Damien Harris (@DHx34) July 4, 2016

Harris got the last laugh, and it could be heard all the way through the season opener against USC when he -- not Scarbrough -- was named the starter. In a 52-6 demolition of the Trojans, Harris gained 138 yards on nine carries, nearly equaling his rushing output as a freshman. Two weeks later, he ripped through Ole Miss en route to 144 more yards in a 48-43 win.

After the game, Smoot, his old coach, sent him a text, complimenting him.

"Once he knew in his heart it was Alabama there was no other choice to be made," Smoot said. "And he sees it now. he sees it now. It's not an easy place to go because those guys are out grinding early, they are working hard, they're still expected to do their work. There are no breaks for him. But I like that aspect of it because it's teaching him what life is really going to expect of him. I think he is finally realizing that."

As Harris has learned, nothing is ever easy now. These days, earning playing time is difficult. So too is staying on the field. It's been challenging for quite a while -- ever since he began wrestling with the choice of where to attend college.

"A decision like that is tough," he said. "That's a decision you will have to live with the rest of your life."

Exactly 627 days after he declared his intent to join the Tide, Harris is confident he made the right one.