Rusty Simmons
Cal sophomore Jahvid Best will not run track and is expected to miss spring football drills after two January surgeries, but he is projected to be rehabilitated by training camp in August, university officials announced Friday. The Heisman Trophy candidate maintained throughout his injury-laden football season that he intended to run track but was left off the roster released last month. Now, we know why. Best had elbow surgery to tighten a ligament in his left elbow Jan. 15 and another operation to relieve irritation created by an extra bone on the outside of his left foot Jan. 23. He dislocated his elbow at the tail end of a run Sept. 27 against Colorado State and injured his foot two games later against Arizona. Cal's medical staff said Best should start running in late March or early April, but will most likely skip spring ball from March 10-April 18 in order to have four months to recover for training camp. The 5-foot-10, 193-pounder turned in a 1,580-yard season - the second-highest total in school history - and set a Cal record by averaging 8.1 yards a carry, despite playing most of the season in pain and rarely getting a full week of practice. Best averaged 131.7 yards a game, ranking No. 1 in the Pac-10 and No. 3 in the nation.
Best had his freshman season cut short by a hip injury and injured his right foot as a junior in high school. He limped to third- and fifth-place medals at the state track meet only to have X-rays reveal a fracture in the foot weeks later. Along with the two injuries that needed surgical repair, Best sprained his thumb in an Emerald Bowl win, played on a sprained ankle most of the season and endured back pain throughout. He deemed himself "completely healthy" before the Nov. 22 Big Game, though it was more a state of mind that an actuality. After back-to-back losses to USC and Oregon State, Best decided he could no longer afford to be hurt despite the pain. He ran for 698 yards and nine touchdowns, and averaged 12 yards a carry over the final three games - all wins. Best ran for 201 yards and three touchdowns in helping Cal retrieve the Stanford Axe, and bettered the spectacular performance in the regular-season finale against Washington. He ran for four touchdowns and 311 yards, breaking Jerry Drew's single-game school record of 283 yards set in 1954. Finally, he sent a nation-take-notice message in the Emerald Bowl, running past Miami for a bowl-record 186 yards.
College Football News writer Pete Fiutak deemed Best the fourth-best candidate for the 2009 Heisman, writing, "Uhhhhh, who? Non-USC Pac-10 players are normally ignored ... and no one outside of the Left Coast has any clue who Best is. That's going to change in a big hurry as he'll be the hot under-the-radar-guy-who-suddenly-becomes-hip candidate."
Briefly: The UC Board of Regents approved the details of coach Jeff Tedford's contract extension through 2015, which doesn't include a pay increase. ... Tedford said 6-1, 225-pound freshman wideout Jarrett Sparks will move to tight end.
No comments:
Post a Comment