ORLANDO, Fla. — Lying in bed, staring out the window, he had no idea what the haunting hollowness was about.

Just more than 36 hours earlier, Darren McFadden had gotten into a fight. He had lost a shoe but kicked one more time, and when he was pulled back by friends, his big toe was hanging by two or three tendons at the first joint.

It wasn’t just the thought of his football career being over that was eating at him that Sunday afternoon.

“I didn’t know what it was, but that it was something real,” McFadden said last week after a practice for the Capital One Bowl. “Something was missing, and I knew I needed that something.”

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McFadden was missing God.

Like millions of others, he thought he was OK. He made some boyish mistakes, such as the fight, and he sometimes pushed the envelope, but he was polite to his elders and nice to youngsters.

“I was raised to treat others like I wanted to be treated, but I wasn’t raised in the church,” he said. “I really didn’t know much about religion or God. I thought it was enough to be a decent person.”

The fight, now known as the incident, was his wake-up call.

Football had been his God, and he didn’t know that afternoon if he would have the game he loved so much anymore.

“The thought of not playing any more bothered me, but I knew what was going on in my heart and head was bigger than that,” he said.

Within a few days after returning to Fayetteville, with his future still unknown, McFadden was approached by Marcus Carruthers, who started Dwelling Place Church in November 2004.

Carruthers was engaging and unchallenging, and McFadden became intrigued.

It didn’t take long for McFadden to realize the incident may have been a mistake, but some good was going to come out of it.

It had been a wake-up call, and he was paying attention.

His spirit began to heal faster than his toe.

McFadden had a multitude of questions, and Carruthers had an answer for every one of them.

To the surprise of almost everyone but himself, McFadden started the season opener against Southern Cal, although his play was limited and he spent more time as a decoy than a threat.

A week later, he rushed for 184 yards against Utah State, and at that point it would have been easy to decide football really was a god.

He followed that with games in which he rushed for 71 against Vanderbilt and then 112 against Alabama, and he was almost 100 percent physically.

Spiritually, he was still growing, meeting regularly with Carruthers and attending church at Dwelling Place.

In a 27-10 victory over Auburn — a game that set the tempo for the season — McFadden ran for 145 yards.

The team arrived home late Saturday evening, but McFadden was up bright and early the next morning.

To the delight of the small congregation, McFadden was baptized that morning.

The next two months became a whirlwind for the sophomore. He was a late entry for the Doak Walker Award, given to the best running back in the country, and his name was coming up in the same sentence as Heisman Trophy.

After he bullied LSU for 182 yards and two touchdowns, he was a legitimate contender for any and all awards.

The Wildcat formation had thrust him into the college football spotlight. He ran, passed and handed off like a veteran quarterback, and the experts were impressed.

He was invited to Orlando, where he won the running back award, and then flown to New York, where he finished as runner-up in the Heisman balloting.

Through it all, he did not change.

His foundation is now solid with spirituality.

“Darren has always been a little quiet, but after he was baptized, he became very humble and that never changed,” Keith Jackson Jr. said.

That doesn’t mean he’s perfect, and last week, with a smile, he said: “I have to ask for forgiveness a lot.”

Now he gets it.