Self-doubt buried AJ Reed for three years. Now Duke kicker is among ACC’s best.
As the ball sailed between the uprights, providing Duke’s only points against Alabama on Aug. 31 at Atlanta’s Mercedes-Benz Stadium, AJ Reed allowed himself to break character.
He’d rallied from a career nadir that saw him go nearly three years without making a field goal by quashing emotions with routine.
In the second quarter, with Duke on the Alabama 12, Reed and the field goal unit trotted onto the field.
“It was just like second nature,” Reed said. “Muscle memory kind of took over. I just went out there and did my job.”
And then the ball went through, the first time he’d made a field goal in game since September 2016. He’d missed his final four attempts that season, a slump that led Duke coach David Cutcliffe to use three other kickers -- including two walk-on players -- for field goals over the 2017 and 2018 seasons.
Reed endured, battling injury and self-doubt, and now he’d come out the other side.
“That moment,” Reed said, “it was, like, I felt like I accomplished something but it was like, this is only the start.”
That it was.
Through Duke’s 10 games, Reed has made 11 of 13 field goals, a dramatic improvement from his 3-of-10 accuracy as a freshman in 2016. After not previously making a kick from deeper that 38 yards, Reed’s kicks of 49, 50 and 51 yards make him the only ACC kicker with three made field goals of 49 yards or more this season.
A career once in shambles is, finally, a success.
“He’s had an incredible year,” Cutcliffe said. “Just a lot of fortitude. He had a great spring. He had a great camp. He’s done what we’ve asked him to do. He’s been, I guess, the most consistent or as consistent as any kicker in the ACC.”
Getting there took introspection and, as Reed says, a lot of growing up.
“For me, personally, the biggest thing has been changing my mindset going into the season,” Reed said. “I think freshman year the reason I struggled so much was that I was too afraid of messing up. You know what I mean? I went into everything worried about messing up.”
It all started on his first field goal attempt, during a game Duke lost 24-14 to Wake Forest, back on Sept. 10, 2016.
“I hit the upright,” Reed remembers. “Oh damn. Starting out 0 for 1. I had like such big aspirations of freshman all-American team and stuff like that. So then stuff started to snowball. I just lost my confidence. I took a while to get that back and to get the coaches’ confidence back in me. That process was difficult,”
Reed consulted his former personal kicking coach. He talked with Ross Martin, Duke’s highly successful kicker from 2012-15. He worked with Jim Bridge, Duke’s special teams coach in 2016 and 2017.
Reed said he and his fellow specialists -- long snappers, kickers, holders -- over the years always had close relationships and supported each other.
Last year, Kirk Benedict took over as Duke’s special teams coach after four seasons as an operations assistant and graduate assistant with the Blue Devils.
They’d known each other for years but now, working closely together, something clicked.
“He genuinely believes in me,” Reed said, “and what he says every day and what he does every day reflects that.”
Reed also changed how he viewed football and its role in his life. An excellent student who carries a 3.75 GPA and is on schedule to graduate in May as a political science major and economics minor, he didn’t let his football struggles impact his classwork.
“I realized football is just a part of my life,” Reed said. “It isn’t my life. I can’t let my performance on the football field dictate the rest of my life. I can’t let a bad practice in the morning dictate the rest of my day. By being able to separate life and football it put things in perspective and it allowed me to get out of my own way a little bit.”
A 2017 groin muscle injury complicated his on-field play as a sophomore, causing him to take a redshirt season. Duke punter Austin Parker added place-kicking duties, along with walk-on Willie Holmquist, as the Blue Devils went 7-6.
Healthy again in 2018, Reed saw walk-on Collin Wareham win the place-kicking job. Wareham made 9 of 13 field goals and 49 of 51 extra points as the Blue Devils went 8-5.
Even as his role remained a reserve with no direct impact on game days, Reed said he never considered leaving Duke.
“I never even thought about transferring,” Reed said. “It’s just something that has been instilled in me from my parents. When you start something, you don’t quit. I felt like transferring was a form of quitting. So even if I never see the field again and I’m a career backup, I signed my national letter of intent here and I told them I’d give my best for four years and that’s what I’m going to do.”
But halfway through last season, though, Reed was back on the field. Cutcliffe and Benedict starting using him to handle kickoffs, a move that paved the way toward this season’s further success.
“That was the beginning of the beginning of him having more confidence,” Benedict said. “You saw him start getting his swagger back.”
Now Reed is among the best kickers in the ACC. He has one more season of eligibility left because he had a redshirt season, but he has no firm plans to use it.
Duke signed Charlie Ham, who is on the team and taking a redshirt season this year, to take over the kicking role in 2020.
As Reed and Cutcliffe discussed earlier this year, this is his senior season. He and his family have made plans to take part in senior day activities at the home finale on Nov. 30 against Miami.
Reed said he’d like to get a master’s degree in business administration one day, but it won’t be immediately after he finishes his undergraduate work this spring.
He said he’ll leave Duke with “zero regrets on where I decided to come to school.” He’s earning a degree that sets him up for a successful life while, in the end, experiencing athletic success, too.
“He’s done great in school,” Cutcliffe said. “He’s a very gifted student. He found his way. What a great lesson for a young man. If you find your way off the field, often it’s a bonus on the field. He’s absolutely done that. I’m extremely proud of him.”
This story was originally published November 22, 2019 at 7:00 AM with the headline "Self-doubt buried AJ Reed for three years. Now Duke kicker is among ACC’s best.."