Contra Costa Times: Cal Gets Boost From Best

By Jonathan Okanes

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Cal tailback Jahvid Best has returned to practice and says he "feels pretty confident" he will be able to play Saturday at Arizona.  Best, who leads the nation in all-purpose yards (215.5 yards per game) and is the Bears' leading rusher at 105.2 yards per game, suffered a dislocated left elbow during a 42-7 win over Colorado State on Sept. 27 and sat out Cal's last game, a 24-14 win over Arizona State on Oct. 4. The Bears had a bye over the weekend.  "I'm progressing more than I thought," Best said Sunday. "Coming from the first couple of days, not being able to move it at all — now I can do pretty much everything functionally with a little bit of soreness."  Best resumed lifting weights late last week and caught some passes at practice Sunday night. He ran through individual drills and even took a few hits without incident. The Bears were off Monday "We'll progress him every day," coach Jeff Tedford said. "Each day he's getting better, and we'll continue to evaluate him day by day."

Longshore sits

Quarterback Nate Longshore sat out the past few practices with a slipped disk in his back but is expected to return in full capacity today. Longshore, who made his first start of the season in the win over Arizona State, is expected to compete against Kevin Riley for the starting job again this week.  "We just wanted to let that thing rest," Tedford said. "Once (the disk) goes back in, you let it calm down a little bit. We just wanted to give him one more day of rest." Longshore, who suffered the injury lifting weights, said he felt fine after practice Sunday.

It's early, but ...…

There are still seven games left, but the Bears, at 2-0, are the only Pac-10 team without a loss. Stanford and Oregon are 3-1, and USC and Arizona are 2-1.  Of course, the Bears aren't thinking about that. If nothing else, they remember what happened last year when they began the season 5-0 and ascended to No. 2 in the national rankings only to finish 7-6.  "There is so much football to be played," Tedford said. "We talk about it all the time — one play at a time in practice, give great effort and do the work it takes to be prepared to play one game. There's a lot of parity. It's not just the Pac-10. In college football, you can continue to go down the list of things that have happened."

Extra points

The Pac-10 announced that Cal's home game against UCLA on Oct. 25 will begin at 12:30 p.m. and air regionally on ABC. ... Cornerback Darian Hagan has been sitting out practice with knee tendinitis but is expected to fully return today.