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By Jeff White (jwhite@virginia.edu)
VirginiaSports.com
CHARLOTTESVILLE – Joe Reed walked into the video room in the football office at the McCue Center, saw Luke Goldstein and couldn’t resist.
“Nice game, huh?” Reed, a longtime Boston Red Sox fan, said with a smile.
Reed, who was an all-state baseball player at Randolph-Henry High School, still follows the sport passionately. So does Goldstein, Virginia’s assistant athletics director for video services, who roots for the New York Yankees.
About 12 hours earlier, the Red Sox had won 16-1 at Yankee Stadium, and they clinched this playoff series the next night.
His older brother, C.J., is a Yankees fan, too, so it’s been a good week on the baseball front for Reed. He hopes to be celebrating football success late Saturday night at Scott Stadium.
A 6-1, 215-pound junior from the small town of Charlotte Court House, about 50 miles southeast of Lynchburg, Reed plays wide receiver and returns kickoffs for UVA (3-2 overall, 1-1 ACC), which hosts No. 16 Miami (5-1, 2-0) at 7 p.m. Saturday.
“I feel like we’re going in the right direction,” Reed said, and a win over the Hurricanes would generate additional momentum for a program in its third season under head coach Bronco Mendenhall.
For Reed, his third college season has had highs and lows. In 2017, when the Cavaliers advanced to a bowl game for the first time since 2011, he led the ACC and ranked eighth nationally with an average of 29.7 yards per kickoff return.
Reed also caught 23 passes for 244 yards and one touchdown last year, and he was expected to have a bigger role in Virginia’s passing game this season. Through five games, though, his receiving statistics are modest: nine catches for 128 yards and one TD.
The Wahoos’ most productive receivers, by far, have been senior Olamide Zaccheaus (33 catches for 501 yards and six TDs) and junior Hasise Dubois (22 catches for 247 yards and two TDs).
Asked about Reed on the ACC coaches’ teleconference Wednesday, Mendenhall said there’s “been kind of an enigma there that we haven’t quite been able to identify in terms of development, usage, and just integration.”
Reed is certainly “worth the investment,” Mendenhall said, “and we plan to keep working on it … We’d like him more integrated and more all-purpose than what he has been. How to do that is something we still haven’t figured out, how to do it at a really high level yet.”
In Virginia’s 27-3 win over Louisville on Sept. 22, Reed caught a 44-yard touchdown pass from junior quarterback Bryce Perkins. “I feel like that was a really big play for me going forward,” Reed said.
A week later, however, in a 35-21 loss at NC State, Reed had only one reception, for 14 yards, and he dropped a pass from Perkins.
Reed said he can’t help occasionally replaying drops in his head, “but at the same time I try not to. I try to tell myself to move on to the next play, that that play’s over.”
Drops have not been a recurring problem for Reed, but he doesn’t want to waste chances to help the team. “For me, it’s about making the most out of my opportunities,” he said, “whether it’s one target, whether it’s five targets a game, just doing what I can. And then when it comes to the run game, trying to secure my blocks.”
Perkins said his chemistry with Reed is “coming along nicely. We talk about what I see and what he sees, and he’s getting better every day.”
Reed is “fast and physical and can catch,” said Perkins, who transferred to UVA from Arizona Western College at midyear.
“He’s fast like O. He plays big like [Dubois], with that physical nature that he brings. He probably won’t get tackled by the first guy. it takes multiple guys to tackle him, so just getting the ball in his hands and allowing him to make plays is going to be big for us.”
On special teams, Reed averaged 25.1 yards per kickoff return in 2016 and ran back two kickoffs for touchdowns last year. Not surprisingly, he’s now “a marked man,” said special teams coordinator Ricky Brumfield.
“When you have a player like this, [opponents get] up because of him.”
Reed had a 43-yard kickoff return against NC State, but opposing teams have tried several tactics to minimize his effectiveness this season.
In 2016 and ’17, he was accustomed to “just lining up and expecting the ball,” Reed said. “Now when I’m back there, I’m expecting the squibs, I’m expecting the sky kicks, I’m expecting them to kick it away from me. That’s really been the biggest difference.”
Reed is averaging 20.6 yards per kickoff return this season, but that, Brumfield said, doesn’t tell the whole story.
“When you look at it on film, he’s hitting the hole [as hard as he did in 2016 and ’17],” Brumfield said, “and we’ve had missed blocks. We’ve had some times where you look at it on film and you’re like, ‘We’re one block away. One person away.’ To the naked eye it’s like, ‘Ah, they got us.’ But they didn’t. We were one block away. If one person gets that block or that chip, we’re to the house with it.”
In Virginia’s 2017 finale, Reed opened the Military Bowl with a 98-yard kickoff return for a touchdown. He said he’ll be disappointed if he doesn’t have another return for a TD this year.
It takes a special player to excel on returns. Asked about the moments before the football sails his way, Reed smiled.
“I think that’s the fun part, the adrenaline rush,” he said. “It’s like those old war movies when they charge. Everybody’s coming this way, and your guys are going that way.”
He’s not nervous as he waits near the goal line, Reed said. “Really when I’m back there, the first thing that’s going through my mind is doing what I can to get the offense great field position. We want to start off on the 40, or maybe the 50, not the 20.”
In Virginia’s visit to Hard Rock Stadium last season, six of Miami’s eight kickoffs went for touchbacks. Reed touched ball only once on special teams, returning a kickoff 20 yards.
He had a bigger impact on offense, teaming with quarterback Kurt Benkert on a 75-yard touchdown pass. That pushed the Cavaliers’ lead over the Hurricanes to 14-0. Miami rallied for two first-half touchdowns, but UVA went up 28-14 early in the third quarter.
Disaster followed for the ‘Hoos, starting with a Benkert pass that the ‘Canes intercepted and returned for a touchdown. On an afternoon when UVA turned the ball over three times, Miami ended up winning 44-28.
“We learned that there’s four quarters in the game, not just two,” Virginia offensive coordinator Robert Anae said this week. “I think what that [game] showed was we’re capable as a group to play somebody who’s a really good team, and we look forward to that same opportunity come Saturday.”
Reed said: “Our biggest thing this year is just taking care of the ball. Had we taken care of the ball last year [against Miami], I think we would have come out with a win.”
An American Studies major, Reed was the subject of a much-praised VirginiaSportsTV.com feature this summer. It focused on his roots in rural Charlotte Court House, which has about 500 residents, and his family’s pastimes, which include frog-hunting.
“We had a fun time going down there, and I think it was appreciated,” Reed said. “It was a big hit. Everybody from home loved the video. Players in the locker room, they loved the video. Everybody was talking about frogs.”
He’s still waiting for teammates, most of whom grew up in more-populated areas, to visit him in Charlotte Court House.
“They want to, but at the same time they’re not ready for it,” Reed said, laughing.