For two years, he has worked for this. Rehabilitating every day to get back for a day of redemption.

He tries his hardest to forget, but the play keeps running through his mind, like an old filmstrip stuck on one frame, continually flickering the moment in the back of his head.

The pass was up, and he was looking to make a play, backpedaling and jumping, but Wisconsin wide receiver Lee Evans came down with the football and Tyrell Dortch, who was playing cornerback, landed on his right foot. That's where it all went wrong.

The right foot twisted and fractured and displaced both the tibia and the fibula, leaving Dortch in the University of Wisconsin Hospital for two weeks.

"When he did it, I knew it instantly that that is what had happened," head athletic trainer Jeff Monroe said. "So I was running by the time he had sat down and the other players reacted. Seeing his lower leg displaced, I realized it was a medical emergency."

Dortch recovered, earned the starting role coming into the season and has been preparing his return to Madison, Wis., for the first time since the injury.

"I'm sure it's going to be hard for him to go back there," senior quarterback Jeff Smoker said. "It may bring back some memories that he might rather forget."

But his return to Madison, which was supposed to be the pinnacle of his brilliant comeback story, might be the beginning of the end of his career.

The junior running back recently found out the cause of the ankle injury that has plagued him this season: a 4-inch surgical metal plate that was attached to the outside of his fibula after the surgery.

Now the running back has a choice to make: Either decide to continue with football and have surgery to remove the plate and begin the rehabilitation process again after this season or decide to leave the playing field behind and move on with his life.

Dortch and head coach John L. Smith have talked as if the surgery is a foregone conclusion, but it will be a tough decision to make.

The plate is held in by two screws, which if removed would leave two holes in the fibula. The bone likely would grow back after careful rehabilitation, but the bone might also have atrophied, making it weaker at some points.

And in the end, not even the doctors know if the surgery would make Dortch healthy once and for all.

"I want to do what's right with Tyrell," Monroe said. "He needs to feel like football is important but be able to handle another surgery. We are talking about a very sensitive young man who has been through a lot that most of us would never think of playing ball again, let alone walking."

The Hoboken, N.J., native worked throughout the past two seasons to get into shape and ran well throughout spring and fall practices. Then, during the Spartans' game against Rutgers, the trouble started.

Every time the ankle would get hit, a sharp pain would occur, and the leg would become weaker and weaker. The plate would be rubbing against the muscles and ligaments attached to the area, inflaming the ankle and never quite healing like it would have if there were just bone.

"It hurts a lot when you get banged on, but you've got to play through pain all of the time," Dortch said.

One of the biggest concerns Smith had coming into the season was Dortch's mental recovery, but that recovery has been hindered by the injury's persistence.

"And the reason he can't get by (the mental part) totally is that he can never feel healthy," Smith said.

And as the season has dragged on, Dortch has missed more and more games with the "ankle sprain," and the team has learned to run, although not highly effectively, without him. Sophomores Jaren Hayes and Jason Teague have filled in and played decently, but have placed most of the pressure on Smoker with their inability to gain yardage in the past two games.

At this point, it is apparent that Dortch won't receive many more carries this season, despite the fact he says he is "85 to 90 percent." The injury is weighing him down, and Smith is hesitant to spend much time practicing with the junior because he's unsure how productive Dortch would be.

The highlight of his season came at Illinois, when Dortch scored two touchdowns, including the first of his college career, in a 49-14 drubbing of the Illini. But overall, the season has become one disappointment after another.

For the season, Dortch has 198 yards on 45 carries with the two touchdowns.

"I had a couple of personal goals, I can't get them, but that's part of life," Dortch said. "The one thing you can do is just keep coming back, keep bouncing back. That makes you a stronger person."