Inside The Huskies

Former UW Corner Curley Reed Never Bounced Back from Knee Injury

The Louisiana native entered the transfer portal after two seasons in Montlake.

Dan Raley

Curley Reed got close to home when the Huskies went to the Sugar Bowl.
Curley Reed got close to home when the Huskies went to the Sugar Bowl. / Dan Raley

At one time, cornerback Curley Reed was a player everyone wanted. Sophomore starter for a Louisiana high school playoff team. Four-star prospect.

All of that changed when he tore up a knee entering his junior season at Lake Charles College Prep in the city of Lake Charles, located about 35 miles from the Texas-Louisiana border.

Reed posted photos on social media of him and his physical therapist rather than him on recruiting visits.

"Went to that dark place and slayed a couple of dragons," he wrote in one of his internet entries. "Now I'm comfortable with being uncomfortable."

Reed -- yes, his formal first name actually is Curley -- ended up at the University Washington, as he explained it, because then Husky defensive-backs coach Julius "Juice" Brown on Kalen DeBoer's staff and the corner's Lake Charles coach Erick Franklin grew up together as friends.

On Monday, Reed entered the transfer portal after appearing for a few snaps in a solitary UW game, against Weber State in the season opener, over two seasons with two different coaching staffs.

In watching him in practice, the Louisiana defenssive back no longer seemed to the necessary burst to put him into serious competition for Husky playing time, so he languished well down the depth chart.

To his credit, Reed was bold enough to come halfway across the country to give UW football a try. He was rewarded with a trip home to the 2024 Sugar Bowl againt Texas -- though his hometown and New Orleans are more than 200 miles apart -- and a chance to see family and friends this past January.

Now he's one of more than a dozen Huskies in the transfer portal, looking for a new place to land, not an easy proposition for someone with a knee that likely won't do him any favors as he tries to sell himself elsewhere.

For the latest UW football and basketball news, go to si.com/college/washington

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Dan Raley
DAN RALEY

Dan Raley has worked for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Atlanta Journal-Constitution and Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, as well as for MSN.com and Boeing, the latter as a global aerospace writer. His sportswriting career spans four decades and he's covered University of Washington football and basketball during much of that time. In a working capacity, he's been to the Super Bowl, the NBA Finals, the MLB playoffs, the Masters, the U.S. Open, the PGA Championship and countless Final Fours and bowl games.

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