It wasn't that long ago that Stefan McClure was a budding star. He looked like a strong candidate to continue Cal's legacy of elite cornerbacks, following recent stars such as Daymeion Hughes and Syd'Quan Thompson.

Just four games into his college career in 2011, McClure suddenly found himself on college football's biggest stage when he was forced into a prominent role during a nationally televised Thursday night game at Oregon because of an injury to starter Marc Anthony. The following week, McClure had to match up against USC All-American receiver Robert Woods and was largely responsible for holding him to his second-lowest output of the season (5 catches, 36 yards).

It had Cal fans fantasizing about the lock-down corner McClure could potentially become.

Anthony returned from his injury and McClure spent most of the rest of his freshman season as a backup, but his time would come.

Unfortunately, his time has been delayed.

In the regular-season finale during his freshman year against Arizona State, McClure was running down field on the kickoff coverage team and planted his foot to cut. His foot slipped slightly and his knee buckled.

It was the worst possible result. McClure had a torn anterior cruciate ligament, medial collateral ligament and meniscus.

"At first, I didn't know how serious it was," said McClure, who is close to being fully healthy again and going through spring practices with the Bears. "I thought I just dislocated my kneecap; nothing serious that would require surgery. But when I got into the locker room, I realized it was a little more severe than I thought."

The original prognosis had McClure returning in 6-9 months, meaning he would be good to go for the start of the 2012 season. But it was later determined he would need microfracture surgery. That put him out of the 2012 season completely.

"It drives you crazy," McClure said. "All the hits and collisions I've been involved in, and to do it just running on special teams. It's the nature of the beast. I'm just glad that I could come back."

So are the Bears. With Anthony and fellow starter Steve Williams now gone, Cal hopes McClure can continue what he started in 2011 before the injury.

"After seeing him the first seven, eight, nine days, I think he's back full-go from his injury," Cal defensive backs coach Randy Stewart said. "There are no lingering effects. It's not going to inhibit his ability."

The injury was even harder for McClure to swallow because his performance as a true freshman had him set up nicely to become even more of a factor in 2012.

"It makes it that much harder because I had a chance to contribute even more," he said. "There would have been tremendous growth from my freshman to sophomore year. It's just a blessing to be back out here. There's still going to be growth. I have to get bigger, stronger, faster. It will still be good to see that growth from my freshman year."

McClure says he feels about 90 percent healthy. But we're just in the spring. With the whole summer and fall camp to continue to get healthy and sharp, it looks as though he will be in position to be an impact player for the Bears in 2013.

"Missing so much time, that fire is just burning that much more to just get back out there and show you can play at this level and you can compete," McClure said. "I've been out for awhile and there are new guys here that don't even know if I can play. I'm out here proving myself to a lot of people, to get back better to what I was before."