KNOXVILLE — The year spent in junior college may very well have been a banishment, from Alvin Kamara’s perspective.
When the stop you make between playing football at Alabama and enrolling at Tennessee is Hutchinson Community College in central Kansas, it certainly can feel that way.
Kamara took a circuitous route, from being a big-time running back recruit and having a tumultuous season with the Crimson Tide to going to junior college and ultimately signing with the Volunteers, but it may have been a necessary one for him to mature on and off the field.
Alabama running back Alvin Kamara (26) catches a ball prior to an NCAA college football game against Mississippi in Tuscaloosa, Ala., on Saturday, Sept. 28, 2013.That’s at least the hope for him and his new team, which expects him to provide another backfield option in 2015.
“Being a year removed and stepping back and just seeing football for what it really is, I feel like I’ll deserve to have an immediate impact,” Kamara said Tuesday afternoon. “Even though if you deserve it, you’ve still got to work. I’m definitely going to work to make an impact on this team.”
It’s easy to see why Tennessee needs that from Kamara.
Jalen Hurd, coming off a 122-yard performance in the TaxSlayer Bowl victory against Iowa to finish a promising freshman season, is the only returning scholarship running back for the Vols.
Coming out of Norcross High School in the Atlanta area, Kamara was the No. 2 all-purpose back and No. 45 player overall in the 2013 class according to Rivals.com when he signed with Alabama.
At Hutchinson CC, which is nestled in a town of a little more than 40,000 northwest of Wichita, Kamara played his way into five-star status with a strong season — 1,469 yards of offense and 21 touchdowns.
Kamara’s talent is evident, and the Vols will need it to pair with Hurd.
“It’s a huge opportunity,” Kamara said. “Jalen did a lot of great things last year, and I’m looking forward to learning from him, because he did it before me.
“Getting into the film room and working with him and Coach G (running backs coach Robert Gillespie) — just being able to learn the offense and get on the field in spring and learn — it’ll be great to see what we team up and do.
“I think we’ll complement each other pretty well,” he added. “Jalen’s a bigger back, powerful — good feet for a big guy and good speed. Me, I can run in between the tackles, but it’s that outside speed, catching ability. It’ll be a good one-two punch.”
During his time at Alabama, Kamara was in and out of the doghouse. He was absent from practice for one stretch during the season and was suspended for the Crimson Tide’s Sugar Bowl trip that season. He left a year ago and enrolled at Hutchinson, which Kamara said has a smaller weight room than the one he had at Norcross.
Kamara said he matured while in junior college, which taught him about commitment, the importance of handling his academics and becoming “more wise with knowing how to deal with people.”
While surrounded by multiple television cameras during his first media appearance since enrolling at Tennessee last week, Kamara sounded genuine in talking about his maturation from his past and expressed appreciation for the lessons the year in Kansas taught him.
“It’s tough being in juco,” he said. “Juco is a whole different world than being at a D-I school. It’s just being committed and staying humble and being able to get through that and work hard to get where you want to get.
“It makes you step back and really appreciate the things that you have, because coming from Alabama and going to Hutch, it was like a shock.”
Kamara called being at Tennessee “a breath of fresh air,” and the Vols hopes he takes advantage of his second chance.
“That was a great, great recruiting get for us,” Vols coach Butch Jones said in December.
While navigating his own path, Kamara watched as other running backs from his recruiting class — players such as Alex Collins at Arkansas and Thomas Tyner at Oregon — had big freshman and/or sophomore seasons.
Kamara named two: Derrick Henry, his former Alabama teammate, and Ohio State’s Ezekiel Elliott, who followed up 220- and 230-yard performances in the Big Ten championship game and Sugar Bowl with 246 yards and four touchdowns in the Buckeyes’ national title win Monday night.
“They’re just ballin’ and tearing it up,” Kamara said. “I’m like, ‘Man, I’m kind of behind.’ I’m playing catch-up.
“I’m ready to get on the field and show what I can do.”
Contact Patrick Brown at pbrown@timesfreepress.com.