Vanderbilt tight end Cole Spence was devastated.

Spence paid his dues with a redshirt season, he'd put on weight and he'd improved. The mental burden of having to be sidelined was past him. He'd impressed all spring. It was finally time for Spence to show what he could do.

Until, by no fault of his own, it wasn't.

An injury that Spence and his family initially didn't realize would be so significant quickly materialized into a nightmare.

The 6-foot-7 tight end had a torn ACL.

“It was heartbreaking," Spence said. "I wanted to be able to help out last year any way I could. I was upset. I was angry."

Spence may have been heartbroken, he may have been upset and he may have been angry. Perhaps he had some emotions that he still doesn't know how to describe.

He wasn't hopeless, though.

"What I expected when we found out how bad it was is 'listen it's ok to suck your thumb, but not for long. Take a week or two weeks, go suck your thumb, grieve. You have a right to be upset," Spence's dad Randy said. "Cole didn't do that at all."

Perhaps he would've been if his parents Rusti and Randy weren't among the first 60 members at Andy Stanley's North Point Community Church, or if he hadn't led that group of second and third graders in Sunday School.

Maybe things would've been different if Vanderbilt quarterback Drew Dickey didn't place his Bible on his desk hours before Spence moved into the pair's freshman dorm room.

Spence knows that those things happened for a purpose, though. The junior tight end thinks similarly of his ACL tear.

For the Roswell, Georgia, native that tear was more than an injury, it was a reminder of who he is and what his purpose is that he may not have gotten without it.

"It definitely helped me realize a lot about who I am and why I’m on this earth," Spence said. "It helped me reset and I leaned on him and I said ‘God this is your plan and you’ve put me in this place,’ but just leaning on him and letting myself know ‘this is all part of the plan and at the end of the day the end of all of our stories is the same it’s just how we’re gonna get there.'"

Spence's perspective was noticeable to those around him.

"I think that the way Cole handled it was an awesome opportunity for him and a weird way for him to really dive into his faith and truly rely on God because when we rely on our own strength we won’t get very far," Dickey said of the ACL tear. "He didn’t push away from God in any way."

For the Vanderbilt tight end that ACL injury wasn't an opportunity to pout or turn away, it was an opportunity to be known as more than just the Vanderbilt tight end.

"To have the ACL blow out sophomore year, another year of not getting to play when you're used to being a superstar [in high school] was tough, what it did was I think it grounded him," Spence's dad said. "I think it helped him realize that his identity in life can't be football.

"His identity has to be in leading people into a growing relationship with Jesus Christ. Football forced him to take a step back and realize that 'God's got a plan here.'"

The Mount Pisgah Christian product didn't always realize that, though.

For Spence it took nights upon nights of questioning. It took skepticism. It took searching.

It took years of testing the validity of all the principles that had guided the then-sophomore's life.

“I grew up in a Christian household and family and when I reached about sophomore year of high school I decided ‘I’ve just been believing this because everyone’s been telling me to believe it,'" Spence said. "I had a lot of questions and I reached out and I was like ‘hey, I don’t know if I really believe in this.'"

As a result, Spence set out on a similar path to his dad and studied.

"I took a skeptical view of the history of the Bible and how it is known that Jesus was a historical human being, the question is ‘was He the Messiah?’" Spence recalls.

That question often made it to Dickey, who was Spence's freshman year roommate.

"I wouldn’t ever say it was an unbelief, he’s just very smart and a critical thinker and he was just like looking at every possible angle to decide that he was sure about it," Dickey said of Spence's skeptical view. "we would just talk about it, and not even really debates, but just like say kinda what we were thinking or like our opinions and our beliefs on a certain topic."

The elder Spence didn't definitively find answers to the questions that his son was asking for 32 years. Perhaps that's why his son was able to find the answer with conviction in less time.

"My dad did the same thing, my father actually reached out, he set out as an atheist to try to disprove Christianity and ended up becoming a Christian," Spence said.

"I tend to be a skeptical, question everything type of guy," Spence's dad, Randy, said. "[I need] evidence."

Spence's dad found that evidence years ago, while Spence found enough to convict him in his freshman year at Vanderbilt.

That conviction stemmed largely from a deeper dive into the lives of Jesus' 12 disciples.

"A big part for me was the 12 disciples," Spence said. "12 men who went out and died with nothing to gain except to prove and profess that Jesus is their Lord and Savior. It’s a never ending journey but if I were a betting man betting on the history I’d say the whole thing is true."

Spence says that with his chest nowadays and professes what he believes to be the truth at any opportunity. That reminds his dad of what Dickey sounded like as the pair arrived to campus.

As a result of some hard conversations between the pair, they now share a similar tone. A similar energy.

Spence's dad looks back on one night in particular that did the trick.

"One day he goes across the hall one night and there's like three football guys sitting around and they're asking these questions debating Christianity and he goes 'dad I had all the answers' he goes 'I couldn't believe it, I haven't accepted Christ yet and I had all the answers," Spence's dad says of Spence. "He went back across the hall, sat down with Drew Dickey and Drew started hitting him with some stuff and a little while later he pledged his life to Christ."

"I remember that moment, it was at night, it was really cool. It was really powerful," Dickey said. "It was that summer and we’d been talking for a few weeks and there was one specific night and he was like ‘Drew, it makes total sense in my heart and I like believe it in my heart and I want to give my life to Christ and I want to pursue God and his love and a relationship with him.'"

That night's realization has allowed Spence to walk it and talk it, he's no longer a "baby Christian," as Dickey would say.

Spence's dad has noticed that, as well.

"Cole has always been responsible, what I see in him now is a newfound adult maturity and I don't know how much of that is the ACL setback and how much of that is just life."

Spence also isn't a baby on the field anymore. He's put on the weight that prevented him from getting on the field over Gavin Schowenwald and Ben Bresnahan as a freshman, he's learned the offense and he's produced this fall in a way that Vanderbilt didn't see from its tight ends last season.

He's become a factor in all the ways that head coach Clark Lea has hoped for.

"He’s a leader. He’s a warrior and I can’t say enough good about him," Lea said. "Cole’s a guy we just have such a high regard for as a person and have such high aspirations for him as a player."

Lea's aspirations may be aided by Spence's health.

"I’d say it took a couple months and now I don’t even notice it anymore so I’m feeling great," Spence said of his recovery. "Obviously at first I came back in the spring and you still gotta knock a lot of the rust off and all that kinda stuff, you just kinda gotta get back in shape and get used to the movements and all that kinda stuff."

That didn't take long.

Spence's rehab is now in the rear-view mirror and blew away the originally anticipated timetable.

"The doctor, Doctor Cox there in Nashville does all these ACL surgeries in Nashville, great guy, and he told me 'Randy if you did this ACL you'd be a year recovery so Cole is probably six-to-nine months," Spence's dad said. "Cole was full speed in five and a half months, he busted his butt."

The Vanderbilt tight end didn't do that just for the heck of it. Spence has bigger aspirations.

Aspirations that his father feels are within reach.

Spence's dad didn't originally think that way, though.

"Cole's dream from back in high school was to play in the NFL," Spence's dad said. "The first time he mentioned to me he wanted to play in the NFL, he wasn't a super star back in 10th grade. He was just ok, I thought he was joking, I almost laughed and then I realized he was serious."

It wasn't long after that 10th grade year that Spence's dad saw a switch flip.

As it flipped, Spence's dad realized that there may be something to his son's words. That was clear through his actions.

"That's the maturity I see in him now. [He] won't eat ice cream, won't eat crap, won't go out and drink."

Spence and his family hope that those habits don't amount to nothing. They feel as if they won't.

"That's the path he's on," Spence's dad said of Spence's NFL dream. "With his potential and his work ethic it doesn't surprise me, that's where he's going and that's what he's focused on and that's what he's gonna hit."