According to a release from K-State Athletics, backed by 189 combined return yards that was featured by a 99-yard kickoff-return touchdown in the Wildcats’ 30-20 win at KU, Kansas State junior D.J. Reed was named the Big 12 Special Teams Player of the Week, the conference office announced Monday.
It was Reed’s second weekly conference accolade this season – the first being after the Central Arkansas game – as it marked the fourth-straight season a Wildcat earned Big 12 Special Teams Player of the Week honors multiple times in a year. The Wildcats now have 47 player of the week honors since 2011, the second most in the Big 12, while 26 of those have been of the special teams variety, the most in the league.
Reed’s 189 combined return yards were the most in the Big 12 this season and tied for the ninth-most nationally. His kickoff-return score in the first quarter was the first of his career as he extended K-State’s nation-leading streak to 13-straight years with at least one kickoff-return touchdown. He later returned a kickoff 53 yards, returned a punt 37 yards and sealed the game with an interception on the final play.
Coupled with his punt-return touchdown against Central Arkansas, Reed is the first Wildcat with a kickoff-return touchdown and a non-blocked punt-return score in the same season since Terence Newman in 2002.
A product of Bakersfield, California, Reed enters play this week ranked in the top 10 nationally in kickoff-return average (2nd; 36.4 yards/return), punt-return touchdowns (8th; 1), combined return yards (9th; 588) and kickoff-return touchdowns (10th; 1).
K-State travels to Lubbock, Texas, this Saturday to take on Texas Tech at 11 a.m., inside Jones AT&T Stadium. The game will be shown nationally on FS1.
