Couch: As Jayden Reed heads to the Green Bay Packers, his impact at Michigan State is worth considering
The 2022 football season might cloud your memory of Jayden Reed at Michigan State. But he should be remembered as an important player and one of the best receivers ever to play for the Spartans, a borderline top-50 player all-time in East Lansing.
And Reed’s selection by the Green Backers in the second round of the NFL draft on Friday night is a reminder of the player he was, when healthy, at MSU. The last Spartan receiver taken earlier than Reed (50th overall) was Devin Thomas 15 years ago and, before that, Charles Rogers, 20 years ago.
Only nine MSU receivers have ever come off the board earlier than Reed — Thomas (2008), Rogers (2004), Plaxico Burress (2000), Muhsin Muhammad (1996), Courtney Hawkins (1992), Andre Rison (1989), Mark Ingram (1987), Daryl Turner (1984) and Gene Washington (1967).
Where a player is selected isn’t everything to who they were in college, but that’s pretty good company.
Reed, whose career began with a dazzling freshman season at Western Michigan before transferring to MSU, is the only receiver ever recruited by Mark Dantonio’s staff to be chosen in the first three rounds of an NFL draft. And he never played for Dantonio. That’s among the what-ifs of Reed’s time at MSU, what-ifs that could have bolstered an impressive legacy. What if he’d been allowed to play in 2019, Dantonio’s final season.
Dantonio’s staff made every attempt to get Reed a waiver, because they knew his potential impact, especially for a program that had a grown man’s defense but lacked offensive playmakers. MSU probably wins at least two more games that season — home against Arizona State and Illinois almost certainly — and, finishing 8-4, perhaps plays in the Gator Bowl on New Year’s Day instead of the Pinstripe Bowl.
Two things might have happened in that case: Dantonio could have felt better about walking away that offseason and might have done so earlier and with less fan frustration surrounding the program; or he would have mistakenly stayed … into the pandemic, and who knows where things would be now.
Reed’s absence had that sort of impact. Just as his presence played a large role in the magic of MSU's 2021 season. He was not Mel Tucker’s first star. That will forever be Kenneth Walker. But Reed was a heckuva Robin to Batman, headlining a dynamic receiver duo with Jalen Nailor and making several of the plays that made that season.
Whatever possibilities you feel for MSU football under Tucker because of 2021, whatever joy you took from those 11 wins, Reed is responsible for a lot of it.
He was a massive part of the Spartans’ fourth-quarter flurry at Miami. A week later, he caught a flea-flicker touchdown pass to open the scoring against Nebraska and then rescued MSU against the Huskers with a punt return score in the fourth quarter. He scored on his next punt return, too, the next week against Western Kentucky.
MSU wouldn’t have beaten Nebraska, Indiana, Michigan or Penn State without him. His fourth-down catch near the goal line against Michigan — trailing 30-14 late in the third quarter — made everything that followed possible.
His catch to put away Penn State in the snow — above a defender, on 4th-and-15 — was another unforgettable play.
And then his catch just inside the end zone late in the Peach Bowl against Pitt — again against a defender in perfect position — put the Spartans ahead and sent MSU gleefully into the offseason.
His injuries this past season derailed his hopes at an encore and to move up even higher on NFL draft boards. He didn’t play at Washington. He didn’t look right against Minnesota. MSU, it turned out, had no chance without a healthy Reed.
When he was finally himself, he prevented the season from spiraling toward something awful. His nine-catch, 117-yard performance against Wisconsin featured a vintage game-winning catch in the second overtime. He threw a touchdown pass in the first overtime. He jogged some memories that day. He was the star we remembered.
Without Reed, MSU’s 11-2 season is probably 7-6 at best. Without Reed, last season’s MSU team finishes 4-8, if it's lucky.
His 147 catches at MSU are sixth-most all-time, despite playing only 31 games in three seasons, in part because the Spartans played just seven in 2020. His 2,069 receiving yards are in top 12. His 18 touchdowns in the top 8.
Reed tallied more than 1,000 yards and 10 touchdowns in that 2021 season. He was a true go-to target that season and a dynamic return threat.
NFL teams saw that player on film and at the Senior Bowl. They saw him grind through a 2022 season when he could have shut it down and gotten healthy in preparation for the draft.
In my rankings of the 50 greatest MSU players all-time, I still have receiver and return man Derrick Mason, who’s No. 50, ahead of Reed. But there’s an argument that peak Reed was better. Mason, a fourth-round draft pick in 1997, caught 943 passes over 15 years in the NFL. That sort of longevity is rare, but Reed has that sort of ability.
RELATED: Original MSU top 50 all-time football players countdown from 2015
RELATED: Updated MSU top 50 all-time football players ranking, with Kenneth Walker
Contact Graham Couch at gcouch@lsj.com. Follow him on Twitter @Graham_Couch.
This article originally appeared on Lansing State Journal: Jayden Reed, new Green Bay Packers NFL draft pick, left mark at MSU
