Here’s every FBS quarterback who has thrown for 8,000 yards over the last two seasons. Caleb Williams. Austin Reed. End list.
Here’s every FBS quarterback who has thrown 70 touchdowns over the last two seasons. Bo Nix. Michael Penix Jr. Austin Reed. End list.
While Williams, Nix, and Penix Jr. are all at least in the conversation to be a round one selection in April, Western Kentucky’s Austin Reed (6002, 223) finds himself in a much different situation. Despite his gaudy statistics, Reed is far from a lock even to be taken at all in the 2024 Draft.
Reed began his college career at Southern Illinois, before heading to West Florida and winning a Division II National Championship there. After the 2021, season, he transferred to Western Kentucky where he played his final two college seasons, leading the nation in passing yards in 2022 with 4,744.
The main knock on his statistics is that they are all a product of the system. At Western Kentucky, they run the Air Raid, an offense that is almost entirely based on the pass. In that same scheme at Western Kentucky, current New England Patriots QB Bailey Zappe broke the all-time FBS passing record with 5,967 yards in 2021.
Austin Reed was at the Shrine Bowl this week, and I got the chance to sit down with him and talk about how he feels his college style will translate to the NFL.
“I look around the NFL and it’s filled with guys who ran Air Raid.” Reed said. “I mean the prime example of it is Pat Mahomes, he was running verbatim what we ran at Western Kentucky. Jalen Hurts did it at Oklahoma, Baker Mayfield did it at Oklahoma. There’s guys all over the league that have kind of had success in that offense. I think the key characteristic of a guy who can be successful in the NFL is somebody who’s adaptable. So for me, I feel like I can adapt in the offense. I feel like I’ve done a good job adapting into it this week.”
Western Kentucky had a good, but not great season in 2023, going 8-5 and winning a bowl game (which Reed didn’t play in). Despite playing in Conference USA, Reed has gotten a chance to go up against some of the better defenses in the country over his two years there.
He posted 329 yards passing against Indiana in 2022 and 289 against Auburn. In 2023, he faced Ohio State, and while Reed was held to just 207 yards passing, it was the most passing yards a quarterback posted against Ohio State all season. It was more than Notre Dame’s Sam Hartman, Michigan’s J.J. McCarthy, Penn State’s Drew Allar, and Maryland’s Taulia Tagovailoa, to name a few.
“To me, like we were gonna go out there and we were gonna play the kind of ball we wanted to play regardless,” Reed noted, referencing the game against Ohio State. “And yeah, obviously you gotta kind of understand when you play against Ohio State space closes up a lot quicker and guys were able to fly around. But again, I view myself as an NFL quarterback and if you’re gonna be able to play in the NFL, you gotta be able to produce against Ohio State and teams like that.”
When digging deeper into Reed’s college career, it’s clear that he is more than just his statistics or a product of the Air Raid. One of his hidden strengths is his ability to avoid pressure, and also avoid sacks when under pressure.
When looking at the above graph (per CFBNumbers on Twitter, note it is only through mid-November games), we can see that Reed had one of the best Pressure To Sack Rates in the country, meaning he can move around the pocket well and avoid getting sacked when his line doesn’t hold up. He also was among the best in Rate Of Pressures Charged To The QB. This means that in cases where his line held up, he wasn’t holding the ball for too long, and was going through his progressions and reads quickly.
“I pride myself a lot on not getting sacked.” Reed told me. “I think sacks are kind of 50-50 quarterbacks [to] offensive line. People don’t realize that a lot of times their favorite quarterback gets sacked because he’s holding the ball too long, and everybody wants to blame the right tackle. The right tackle held his block for three and a half seconds. The ball should have been out by now. I’ve always taken a lot of pride in helping my offensive line out in that way. You also build a lot of respect from your offensive line when you’re able to not get sacked and when you’re able to avoid sacks, because then you end up making those guys look better.”
Watch the above clip where Reed is able to avoid the rush, step up in the pocket, and deliver a great throw down the field. It’s unlikely that Reed ever becomes a serious running threat in the NFL, but it’s vital that QBs today can at least avoid sacks by extending plays in the pocket any way they can. Despite his relative lack of pure speed, it’s clear Reed can do that.
With Arthur Smith recently hired as the Steelers’ new offensive coordinator, the offense the Steelers run in 2024 likely looks a lot different from Reed’s Air Raid. But Reed had one main focus coming into Shrine Bowl week, and the draft process as a whole, being adaptable.
“I’ve made a lot of stops in my college journey and I’ve adapted to a lot of different circumstances and it goes back to being adaptable, you know, like I told you. And so I think I can adapt to whatever a team needs from me.” Reed mentioned. “I have enough film out there that shows me making big-time throws and shows I can play football… But for me, I’m gonna go out there and NFL teams are gonna see me getting in a huddle, calling a play, [using] different cadences under center, going through NFL reads and I’m gonna prove to them that I can play in an NFL system.”
One likely look for the Steelers QB room going into the 2024 season is accompanying Kenny Pickett with both a veteran (maybe Mason Rudolph, maybe a free agent), and a rookie. Reed likely wouldn’t take much draft capital to grab and presents an intriguing upside option for a team in the Steelers’ position.
