Stillwater, Okla. ? As he lay in bed after playing in the Bedlam rivalry game for the first time, Andrew McGee just couldn’t sleep.

The pain kept getting worse and around dawn, he made a call to Oklahoma State’s trainers and told them how badly his neck was bothering him.

When the diagnosis came back that McGee had two cracked vertebrae, everyone thought his football career was over. But as the weeks and months passed, McGee kept healing to the point that he decided to try a comeback.

A year later, he’ll not only be playing but starting when the 10th-ranked Cowboys (10-1, 6-1 Big 12) host No. 14 Oklahoma (9-2, 5-2) today with a trip to the Big 12 championship on the line.

“I’m kind of in awe when I think about the fact that it could have been all over for me at this time last year,” McGee said. “I think of the amount of things that God has done in me and through this team just in the span of a year. It’s been amazing.”

McGee was knocked out when he tried to tackle Oklahoma’s Ryan Broyles on a punt return and ended up being hit by his knee. Looking back, he believes the lingering symptoms from a concussion prevented him from feeling the pain from his broken neck until daytime turned into a sleepless night.

“Initially, the doctors and all the coaches thought it was over when they told me it was broken,” McGee said. “I was just blessed and happy that I wasn’t in a wheelchair at the time.”

The injury cost the Magee, Miss., native a chance to start in place of the suspended Perrish Cox in Oklahoma State’s Cotton Bowl loss against Mississippi, but no one was concerned about that at the time.

“We thought he was done. We went all the way into Christmas thinking that his career has ended,” defensive coordinator Bill Young said. “We went out recruiting midterm high school guys, looking for a junior college corner to take his place and he tricked us. He got well and came back.”

By late spring, McGee was ready to give football a try again. Coach Mike Gundy and Young made sure that his parents approved of his comeback attempt and that he wouldn’t be putting himself at risk.

To McGee, it was a simple decision.

“It wasn’t tough at all,” he said. “I knew that if God gave me an opportunity, I was going to play football. I love it.”