Tailback Jahvid Best addressed local media Wednesday evening for the first time since sustaining a concussion during the Cal football team's game against Oregon State, saying that his "expectation" is to be ready for a return to the field by the time the Bears play Washington on Dec. 5.

The junior said he has not given any thought to his future plans beyond this season, other than that the injury has in no way made him rethink playing football.

Best was injured on Nov. 7, when he hurdled Beavers safety Cameron Collins into the end zone and was hit while in the air, landing on the back of his head and neck after a fall of nearly nine feet. He said Wednesday that his headaches went away after about a week, and that the only lingering effect of his injury right now is a sore back.

Coach Jeff Tedford has stated repeatedly that a discussion about Best playing football again hasn't been breached, but Best said Wednesday that it has come up in conversations with doctors. The Huskies are Cal's last regular-season opponent, but with six wins already, the Bears are almost assured a spot in a bowl game, which would likely take place in late December.

"They kind of said it's up to how I'm feeling," Best said. "They said there's no kind of parameter about, if you do this then it takes that much longer or anything like that. So it's all based on basically how I feel."

For how frightening the scene of the injury was, Best was nonchalant in recounting his memories of what happened and his reaction to seeing the play on film. He said he remembers everything up until making contact with the ground, then nothing until he woke up in the hospital. His mother filled him in on what had happened.

"I was actually pretty calm," he said. "It didn't faze me too much. But my mom and a couple of my friends and everybody else was pretty scared."

As were the 56,496 in attendance at Memorial Stadium, all of whom fell silent for the roughly 15 minutes while medical personnel attended to Best, who lay apparently motionless on the field. At the time, the fear that Best had been paralyzed seemed legitimate from the awkward manner in which he had fallen.

Best said that "anytime somebody's taken off on a stretcher, it always gets taken pretty seriously." He is thankful that his injury wasn't as bad as the landing showed it could have been.

Still, the replay-which Best said he has watched twice-didn't get much of a reaction out of him.

"It was an unfortunate incident, but it didn't look too bad to me," he said.

Best was at practice on Wednesday, a spectator on the sidelines while the Bears prepared for the 112th Big Game this Saturday at Stanford.

"That's why he's so well-respected," Tedford said. "He's such a team guy. Even though we know he's not going to play this week, he's here to support his teammates, and that's Jahvid all the way."

Quick Hits

-- Nose guard Derrick Hill practiced Wednesday, but his status for Saturday is in question. Tedford said tight end Anthony Miller is experiencing "no problems" with his left knee and will play against Stanford. Miller underwent arthroscopic knee surgery on Nov. 3.

-- Receiver Marvin Jones, the team leader in catches, has a quad bruise that caused him to limp through the second half of last week's game against Arizona and limited him in practice Wednesday. Tedford, though, said that Jones should be 100 percent for the game.

Tags: JAHVID BEST, JEFF TEDFORD, CAL FOOTBALL