By Will Vandervort.

By Will Vandervort

The toughest job Mike Reed had last football season was trying to game plan against Clemson’s fast paced offense. The task for the former NC State defensive backs coach was to stop receivers DeAndre Hopkins, Sammy Watkins, Adam Humphries, Martavis Bryant and tight end Brandon Ford.

“You name it, they had it,” Reed said Friday in his first official interview with the Clemson media as the Tigers’ new defensive backs coach. “It is one of those things where there are a lot of holes and you try to patch them up. You try to make them snap the ball because as a coach you hate seeing something like that.”

Reed and the NC State secondary that day saw a lot of Tajh Boyd throwing one touchdown pass after another in the Tigers’ 62-48 victory in Death Valley. Boyd lit up the ‘Pack for 426 yards and five touchdowns. He threw a seven and a 69-yard pass to Ford, a 27 yard pass to Watkins, a 62-yard pass to Hopkins and a 40-yard scoring pass to Bryant.

“There was no weak spot in that offense,” Reed said. “They still keep showing that game around here often and I keep asking, ‘Why to ya’ll keep showing that game?’ I had a pretty decent secondary, but it was one of those days where we would make a play and they would make two. We’d make another play and they would make three.

“It was one of those games where you were like, ‘Wow!’ The tempo, you could not simulate it. You can’t simulate the tempo Clemson runs with our guys on the scout team because we don’t do it, so it is like, Wow! They are snapping the ball and snapping the ball and substituting receivers, while I got DBs that have been in the game 30 straight plays. I’m like, ‘Wow! Play Cover 2!’”

Since Reed, nor anyone else for that matter, can stop Chad Morris’ up tempo, explosive offense, why not just join them. Reed joined the Clemson staff following the Chick-fil-A Bowl after completing his sixth season as the secondary coach at NC State.

Reed admitted he has always wanted to coach at a school like Clemson, where its fans are passionate and there are traditions that are second to done. He recalled sitting on the couch last September with his wife, Kimberly, and watching the Clemson-Florida State game.

“I said, ‘Man, that’s one of the places I would love to coach at,’” he said. “I may be a little bit different, but I have always envisioned myself coaching in certain places. My wife goes, ‘Yeah it would be kind of neat to coach there.’ One, she likes the color orange.

“But seeing Clemson over the last six years with the tradition and the pageantry of running down the Hill, it is one of those things where you say, ‘Man, I would like to do that in life.’ You know there are certain things in life you want to do before you die and I was like, ‘I would like to see what it is like to run down the Hill and coach at Clemson.’”

Reed will get that chance on Aug. 31 when the Tigers kickoff the 2013 season against Georgia. Before that, however, his job is to make sure his defensive backs are ready for what they are going to see from Aaron Murray the Georgia wide receivers.

Murray, like Boyd, is considered one of the best quarterbacks in the country heading into 2013. Murray led the SEC in passing, passing yards and touchdowns last season. Reed’s task is improving a secondary that lost three starters and a reserve player from a unit that was ranked as one of the worst in the ACC last year.

In 2012, the Tigers allowed 240.3 yards per game through the air as opponents threw 23 touchdowns and only 13 interceptions. Clemson gave up 40 plays of 25 yards or more, including five against Reed’s old team.

“As people say, ‘I have just been thrown in the grease,’” Reed said. “That’s okay. Fortunately, I have played that position so I know what it feels like to be thrown in the grease. I know what it feels like to be out there and it is fourth-and-six, the ball is on the ten yard line, you are playing man-to-man coverage and you have to make that stop.

“What are you going to do? You can’t get scared and run under the bench. You have to face it. It is something I relish and have handled before. I look forward to it.”

Three times in the last five years, Reed has come out of that grease popping. His secondary has ranked in the top 20 in interceptions, including last year with 16. In 2011, NC State led the country with 27 interceptions, the most nationally since Nebraska had 32 in 2003. The 27 interceptions rank second all-time in ACC history and the most since Virginia had the same amount in 1994.

With two new safeties in Robert Smith and Travis Blanks, and with two freshman coming in this fall and competing for playing time right out of the gate, Reed will have his hands full getting his new players ready for what they will face in 2013, and he is looking forward to it.

“It is not an easy transition, but I will say this, the expectations are a lot greater,” he said. “Coming off the season that Clemson had last year, people are expecting this team to go further. My thing is, I don’t want to be that guy at the end of the stick.

“The expectations are up and I like that. I’m a competitor. I’m a DB at heart. You know that saying, ‘Your name is on it.’ Well, my name is on this.”