Reed Harris has wasted no time making himself impossible to ignore at Arizona State.
The former quarterback turned wide receiver has surged into the Big 12 conversation over his first three games with the Sun Devils, sitting tied for eighth in the country in receiving touchdowns and second in the conference in receiving yards with 374. He gets another chance to flash that production Saturday night when Baylor comes to Mountain America Stadium.
“He prepares as good as anyone I’ve ever coached at any position,” coach Kenny Dillingham said. “He’s ready for his moment. When it comes, it’s just another day.”
Harris’ rise in Tempe has been a long time coming, and it started in Montana. At Great Falls High School, he was the kind of player coaches could plug in anywhere and trust immediately.
Quarterback. Linebacker.
Receiver. Harris did it all, and by his senior year he was still stretching himself across multiple sports, too, including basketball and track and field.
His high school coach, Coda Tchida, saw the receiver talent early.
“I thought we should have moved him up and started him at receiver as a freshman,” Tchida said. “He honestly would have been our best receiver as a freshman.”
That versatility defined him for most of his prep career, but it also came with a clear throughline: Harris never turned away from whatever job the team needed.
“He was always willing to do whatever the team needed him to do,” Tchida said.
The results followed. Harris won the 200-meter Montana state championship and finished second in the 100 meters as a senior. In football, he was a finalist for Montana Gatorade Player of the Year and earned first-team all-conference and all-state honors on both defense and offense.
By the time recruiting rolled around, he was the top-ranked prospect in Montana in the class of 2023 by most major recruiting networks, and 13 Division I programs had offered him. Oregon State wanted him at linebacker.
UCLA looked at him as a quarterback. Only one school recruited him as a wide receiver.
That was the position Harris wanted.
“We sat here in the office, and I was like, ‘Well, where’s your heart at, man?’” Tchida said.
“And he’s like, ‘Coach, I want to be a wide receiver.’ Ten minutes later, he called his mom, he said, ‘Hey, I’m going to Boston College.’”
Harris is believed to be the first player from Montana to play in the ACC, and his production at Boston College backed up the move. As a redshirt freshman, he had 486 receiving yards and four touchdowns. The next season, he added 673 yards and five touchdowns.
But Boston College’s 2-10 finish that year left him questioning his place.
“He’s worked too hard not to be a No. 1,” Tchida said. “‘You are No. 1 at any program, and if they don’t treat you that way, you got to go.’”
Harris entered the transfer portal on Dec. 29, 2025, and Tchida told him to focus on what was best for him.
“I said, ‘Hey, you got to do what’s best for Reed Harris for the first time,’” Tchida said.
The two stayed in touch every day during the process, and Arizona State quickly emerged as the right fit. Harris committed on Jan. 7, 2026.
“Just seeing what coach Dilly and (wide receivers coach Hines Ward) were doing with this program,” Harris said. “I would see things on Instagram and Twitter just talking about the kind of coaching that’s going on here and it’s definitely true.”
Ward had already studied Harris closely before he arrived in Tempe.
“I watched him,” Ward said. “I watched a lot of tape. I knew he could probably play at the next level.”
At Arizona State, Harris has found a coach in Dillingham who brings the same kind of energy Tchida did in high school. Dillingham is 36, the same age Tchida was during Harris’ senior year.
“You can feel their energy,” Harris said. “Coach Tchida and Dilly are both energetic guys and they’re emotional, too. So it’s good to know that your coach has feelings and that’s someone that everybody wants to play for.”
That comfort has carried into the locker room, where Harris has built strong bonds with teammates and coaches. Ward pointed to Harris and quarterback Cutter Boley being around each other constantly.
“Him and (quarterback Cutter Boley), they are always together all the time,” Ward said.
Ward called the atmosphere around the program a “family vibe,” which matters in a college football era where players move around so often.
For Harris, the focus now is simple: keep developing and keep climbing as a receiver.
“He’s going to continue to get better each and every day,” Ward said. “He really hasn’t tapped into how really good he can be. He just scratched the surface and had a little success just on the daily habits that he’s doing now.”
At 6-foot-5 and 220 pounds, the Great Falls native is already drawing attention from NFL scouts, and some analysts have suggested he could be an early-round pick in the 2027 NFL draft. After the start he’s had at Arizona State, that buzz no longer sounds far-fetched.
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