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RALEIGH -- Even now, as he watches the replay, Toney Baker just doesn't see what was so bad about it.

Late in N.C. State's season-opening loss to Central Florida, Baker took a short pass and headed upfield. He broke a few tackles, then tried to spin away from another defender. The tackler brushed against Baker's right knee as he went to the turf.

"I finished the play, and when I got up my knee was popping around," said Baker, a former standout at Ragsdale High. "I didn't know what was going on."

What was going on was actually the end of Baker's season through what he now terms "a freak accident." That one-in-a-million millisecond actually was the beginning of a long rehabilitation that began in earnest with surgery Thursday and won't truly be over until Baker takes the field next season. He plans to be ready for the Wolfpack's opener.

"I still have two years of football left here," Baker said early this week. "This isn't the end of the road. Things happen for a reason."

It's taken awhile for Baker to develop this positive outlook on his football future. The day after the Central Florida game, when he received word about the extent of the injury, it was hard to take a thoughtful, long-term view.

"When they told me I was going to be gone for the season, I just kind of went into shock a little bit," Baker said.

It seemed so hard to comprehend. He'd had much worse pain from ankle injuries, injuries that hadn't even caused him to miss any games.

After taking a few weeks to recover from the initial arthroscopic procedure that was done to determine the extent of the injury, Baker was able to walk around without a brace following some rehabilitation. When his teammates would see him, some initially thought his recovery was almost over.

"They're expecting me to come back (this season)," Baker said. "But it's not going to happen."

That's because the initial surgery uncovered cartilage damage to Baker's right knee. Repairing it would require a lengthy process. First, a small piece of healthy cartilage was removed from Baker's knee during the first procedure. It was sent to a lab, where it was used to grow more healthy cartilage cells.

Thursday, Baker underwent a procedure in which those new, healthy cartilage cells were placed back in his knee and sealed with a patch of tissue from his femur (thigh bone).

Baker will spend the next eight to nine weeks on crutches, waiting for the surgery to heal. Then the real work begins. He'll spend some serious time performing aquatic therapy in the sports medicine center at N.C. State's Murphy Center, working to regain a range of motion in the knee without putting weight on it. Baker will then keep working to gain strength in his right leg until he reaches the point where he can do some weight-bearing exercises.

The goal is to get him back to doing "functional work" within nine to 10 months, according to State's head football athletics trainer, Jamey Coll.

"The advantage for Toney is the fact that he's young and he's healthy," Coll said. "He's one that's a good listener. He'll do what we ask him to do. All those things will certainly help with his recovery."

So will Baker's mind-set. He has spent time talking with his father, Tony, who had to recover from an injury just before he started his NFL career. Other family members, his girlfriend, Kate Sanyer, and Wolfpack fans also have chipped in with words of support.

The rational side of Baker can digest all this. He can understand that it might be a good thing to still be at State two years from now, when the players on the roster have adjusted to the new schemes implemented by coach Tom O'Brien and his staff. In a way, the injury allows Baker to miss some of the team's growing pains.

But that rational side doesn't make things any easier on Saturdays, when Baker watches State play from the players lounge in the Murphy Center and wonders what things might be like if he were healthy.

"It's extremely difficult for me, just because I know I could help out," Baker said. "That's what makes it really hard for me."

He plans to ward off those feelings of frustration by throwing himself full-force into his rehab. Everything happens for a reason, according to Baker.

He just hopes that reason turns out to be a good one.

Contact Jim Young at 373-7016 or jyoung@news-record.com