Bethune-Cookman hires Ed Reed as its next head coach

COLLEGE FOOTBALL: SEP 03 Bethune-Cookman at Miami
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HBCU lost a Hall of Fame defensive back turned head coach when Deion Sanders left Jackson State to go to Colorado. A few weeks later, another Hall of Fame defensive back is starting his head coaching career at a HBCU.

Ed Reed has accepted the job at Bethune-Cookman, the school announced Tuesday. He will become the 16th head coach in the Wildcats’ history.

Bethune-Cookman, which is located in Daytona Beach, Florida, is a member of the SWAC. The Wildcats finished 2-9 last season, including 2-6 in conference play.

Reed’s alma mater, the University of Miami, hired him in 2020 to serve as the football team’s chief of staff, an advisory role to head coach Manny Diaz.

He played for the Ravens from 2002-12 and finished his career in 2013 with the Texans and Jets. The Pro Football Hall of Fame inducted him into Canton in 2019 in his first year of eligibility.

23 responses to “Bethune-Cookman hires Ed Reed as its next head coach

  1. He’s going to be an excellent coach! I listed to his analysis here in the D.C. are for years about our horrible defenses in Washington and he was ALWAYS spot on! I wish we could have hired him years ago! I wish him nothing but success!

  2. One of the best to ever do it. He appears to be a very intelligent guy as well. Wish him the best.

  3. What’s the guy been doing for the last 10 yrs? Only time I’ve seen him is boasting about all the miscreants who played for the U, on the 30-for-30 special.

  4. Ed Reed only LOOKS like he’s homeless and hasn’t bathed in months. Don’t judge a book by its cover.

  5. If everything they say about his football acumen is true, he could be made for coaching. Bets of luck to him.

  6. The interesting thing will be how Ed deals with players that simply don’t see the field as well as he does and if he can coach them up. By all accounts, he helped a lot of the Ravens youngsters, but they still couldn’t see the way he saw the field. My gut says he does well enough, but Prime was a unique case, IMO of right guy, right kids in the pipeline, and right fit.

  7. He’s one of the only defensive backs ever to make Tom Brady and Peyton Manning look extremely pedestrian. Their passes would come back the opposite direction just as quickly as they threw it. It takes a lot of football IQ to read them like a book so I’m sure he’ll translate well into coaching.

  8. Nope. Nope. There’s only one Deion Sanders. Don’t even think you’re getting anything even close to Deion. I’m glad Ed Reed got this job, and I wish him well. Deion Sanders is a once in a lifetime human being. Probably the greatest athlete of my lifetime (I’m 64). And super, super intelligent. He knows how to sell himself. He can out-recruit the best recruiters. He’s on a mission. He’s coming!

  9. Great player with range and a coach on the field. Should have been a pro coach as soon as he retired but must have had other interests.

  10. A former player with no coaching experience given the head coaching job, sounds a lot like Jeff Saturday.

  11. I wonder how that homeless look will play on recruiting trips when he meets the high school players’ moms?

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