BATON ROUGE — In what is the biggest individual honor for an LSU football player in nearly 30 years, wide receiver Josh Reed was the named the winner of the Biletnikoff Award, which goes to the nation’s best receiver.
Reed was watching with a room full of his teammates and coaches in the Lawton Room when the winner of the award was announced on the ESPN College Football Awards Show on Thursday night. Reed was selected the winner over Florida’s Jabar Gaffney and Wisconsin’s Lee Evans.
“This is really unexpected,” Reed said. “I never thought when I first lined up against Alabama in the ninth week of the season in 1999 that I would be in this position in such a short time. I’ve been very fortunate to always have great teammates and great coaches around me that have made this possible. This has all happened so fast it hasn’t really sunk in yet.
“To be selected as the Biletnikoff Award winner over great candidates like Lee Evans and Jabar Gaffney is a great honor for me because they’re incredible receivers.”
Reed is the first LSU player to be recognized with such a high honor since 1972 when quarterback Bert Jones was named the National Collegiate Football Player of the Year.
Reed has put together the best year statistically in both LSU and Southeastern Conference history for a receiver. With one game left on the schedule, Reed has already caught an LSU record 90 passes for an SEC record 1,680 yards. He’s also caught seven touchdown passes. Of Reed’s 90 receptions, 71 have gone for first downs. He also has 21 catches of 30 yards or more and 37 receptions of 20 yards or better.
Reed leads the nation in receiving yards per game with 152.7 per contest, he ranks third nationally with 8.2 catches per contest and he’s eighth in the nation in all-purpose yards with 163.6 a contest. Reed leads the SEC in all three categories and he joins Florida’s Rex Grossman as the only players in the league to lead the conference in three categories.
Reed set a pair of SEC records with 19 receptions for 293 yards and a touchdown in the Tigers’ 35-21 win over Alabama in early November.
This year, Reed has had an LSU record 10 100-yard receiving games and he’s gone over the 175-yard mark three times. Reed, who was moved to wide receiver from running back in the ninth week of the 1999 season after a series of injuries depleted the Tiger receiving corps, has posted a school-record 17 100-yard games in just 26 games at the position.
Reed enters Saturday’s SEC Championship game against second-ranked Tennessee needing only 26 yards to become the SEC’s all-time leader in receiving yards. Reed has 163 career receptions for 2,941 yards and 17 touchdowns. Boo Mitchell of Vanderbilt holds the SEC mark with 2,964 career yards.
The Biletnikoff Award is given annually to the nation’s top receiver. Past winners include Antonio Bryant of Pittsburgh (2000), Troy Walter of Stanford (1999), Troy Edwards of Louisiana Tech (1998), Randy Moss of Marshall (1997), Marcus Harris of Wyoming (1996), Terry Glenn of Ohio State (1995) and Bobby Ingram of Penn State (1994).