MONROE, Ga. -- Notre Dame defensive end Stephon Tuitt's football career started when he took the first step out the front door of his mother's home on a cul-de-sac in rural Georgia.

Determined to attend the first day of summer conditioning for football players at Monroe (Ga.) Area High School in late May 2007, Tuitt left home around 7 a.m. and started what he believed would be about a one-hour walk.

Stephon Tuitt is approaching Notre Dame's single-season sack record. Jonathan Daniel/Getty Images

After more than four hours, 10 miles and approximately 10,000 steps, Tuitt finally reached the high school's field house. He was drenched in sweat from walking in the stifling Georgia humidity and arrived more than two hours after the other players had left.

"I didn't know how far he walked," Monroe Area High coach Matt Fligg said. "I didn't even know who he was. He said he'd walked a few hours. When I took him home, I was dumbfounded. I really didn't believe that's where he lived. But when I picked him up the next day, he came out the front door.

"I can promise you one thing -- it was the last time he ever walked to practice."

On Monday night, Tuitt will reach what is so far the pinnacle of his football career when No. 1 Notre Dame plays No. 2 Alabama in the Discover BCS National Championship at Sun Life Stadium.

More than five years after he marched past two firehouses, a handful of churches, a golf course and plenty of rolling countryside to launch his football career, he was named an All-American this season, having led the Fighting Irish with 12 sacks and 13 ½ tackles for loss. Tuitt, a 6-foot-6, 303-pound sophomore, needs two sacks against the Crimson Tide to break Notre Dame's single-season record.

Tuitt, who already is being projected as a potential top-10 pick in the 2014 NFL draft if he leaves Notre Dame after his junior season, says he wouldn't be where he is today without taking that long walk not so long ago, even if it ended up being a lot farther than he thought.

"I just put my mind to it," Tuitt said. "I'd never played football before and I was determined to join the team. When my mom picked me up from school every day, it seemed like it only took five minutes to get home. I guess she was driving really fast. I figured if it was a five-minute drive, it was probably like a one-hour walk."

When Tuitt returned home after his first practice, he still had to answer to the woman who had instructed him not to go. His mother, Tamara Bartlett, a deputy with the Gwinnett County (Ga.) Sheriff's Department, had told him to wait to go to practice until she returned home from work.

"I didn't find out until I got home," Bartlett said. "I was mad. I told him to wait until I got home, but he didn't want to miss practice."