Disappointing news for all Bears fans came on Saturday, as junior tailback Jahvid Best declared his intention to leave Berkeley and enter the NFL Draft. #4 was a dynamic and electrifying player for the Bears, who all too often was on the sidelines due to injury. Whenever he touched the ball, he was a threat to score, and nobody could match his blazing speed or quickness. In his limited 3 years, Best was a pleasure to watch and listen to as he was at the forefront of the Bears' push to get to the top of the Pac-10. It is sad to see him leave after what seems like a brief career in Berkeley, but after his horrific fall against Oregon State the man has a career to watch out for and money to earn; it's selfish for me to want him to return. Here's a great article from Dr. Saturday that epitomizes my feelings about Jahvid:

"It's too soon to tell whether Jahvid Best's three-year stay at California will be remembered mainly for his spectacular play, or for its spectacularly disturbing ending, when Best crashed head-first into the end zone from at least six feet off the turf after a goal-line leap against Oregon State in November. The junior speedster confirmed on Saturday that that play (which kept him out of the Bears' last three regular season games and their bowl loss to Utah with a concussion and lingering back pain) was in fact his last as an amateur, and it may take becoming a household name in the NFL to erase it as the defining moment of his career -- if only because, as one of the top three or four running backs in the upcoming draft, his failure to become a household name could be traced directly to that frightening moment.

As for what came before, there's something slightly unfulfilled about Best's potential, thanks to a combination of nagging injuries, an inability to fully shed the "track star" label by establishing himself as an every-down workhorse (as his East Coast doppelganger, C.J. Spiller, was able to do this year at Clemson) and a tendency to disappear in his team's biggest games -- in six career games against the Pac-10's other top programs, USC and Oregon, Best averaged 54 all-purpose yards and never went over 100 as the Bears went 2-4. But it's hard to make that argument by the overall numbers: After biding his time as a backup and special teams ace as a true freshman, Best led the Pac-10 in yards from scrimmage as a sophomore and leaves with just over 4,000 career all-purpose yards and 35 touchdowns in essentially two seasons of work. If he'd remained healthy this year, he'd have easily threatened 1,400 yards on the ground alone.

More importantly, it's hard to make another argument that Best isn't one the elite backs in America if you actually watched him with the ball in his hands, which too few people actually did (thanks, East Coast bias/lame Pac-10 television contract). Anyone who saw him burn Tennessee for 103 all-purpose yards in his first game, or scorch a trail through Miami for his fourth straight 200-yard game in the '08 Emerald Bowl, or his five-touchdown explosion at Minnesota in September, will only remember their disbelief that he wasn't touching the ball on almost every snap. There are more consistent stars and more productive backs, but there are only a handful of players at any given time who have the potential to thrill (or, if you're in the opposing camp, terrify) you every time they touch the ball. For his day, let it be said that no one could out-highlight Jahvid Best."