Brandon Reddish murmurs his jokes. If he has an observation about the team that he wants to share, he’ll tell his good friend, Syracuse nose tackle Eric Crume, to say it. He says he doesn’t really like to yell, much less talk.

But in his hometown of Brooklyn, New York he’s known as “Bam.”

Behind a childish face and a mouth that rarely opens, the 5-foot-10 Reddish leads a much-improved SU secondary. The senior also leads the Orange (3-5, 1-3 Atlantic Coast) in interceptions with two and his open-field tackling has stood out among a set of defensive backs that are routinely targeted by bubble screens.

After battling through injury for much of last season, the soft-spoken cornerback is a recovered player with extra hours that used to be spent in treatment. Now, he has time to help teammates study film, quiz them as they do and comfort upset teammates.

“He’s aware of everybody on the team and how their personalities are,” SU defensive said coordinator Chuck Bullough.

When Reddish goes back to Brooklyn, he greets his former Fort Hamilton volunteer assistant coach, Mikael Young, with the coach’s old nickname, “Money.”

Young used to remind Reddish and his teammates to bulk up on what he calls the “poor man’s diet” of peanut butter and banana sandwiches with every meal.

Young remembers Reddish not needing much help in high school, just smiling a lot and catching a lot of passes both as a receiver and a cornerback. He caught the game-tying touchdown in the 2010 Public School Athletic League championship game with three minutes to play against Wayne Williams’ Abraham Lincoln High School.

“I don’t know how, Brandon Reddish wound up sneaking back there and a deep ball — there just wasn’t enough time left after they went for the two,” said Williams, SU’s junior nose tackle.

Young still tells Reddish to work out more and bulk up. But at Syracuse, Reddish does his own share of coaching.

“He’s always been the leader,” Bullough said. “Always.”

The defensive coordinator said he had doubts about Reddish’s ability to keep up with the faster players in the ACC, but that they’ve been proven wrong. In Bullough’s first season last year, Reddish played hurt in a secondary that gave up 229.8 passing yards per game.

In 2013, Reddish would arrive at Manley Field House early to hop in a cold tub to get his legs back underneath him and then get treatment during the day. Now Reddish can play at full strength, teaching without talking unless he really needs to.

A week or two ago, he said, another SU defensive back reached out to him about studying film. So Reddish texted and FaceTimed his teammate as they watched film on iPads. Reddish quizzed him on each opponent’s play, asking him what he should do to counter each move by the other team. When the teammate got it wrong, Reddish corrected him.

“If somebody’s having a problem,” Reddish said, “I come in with them no matter the time, I’m coming in to help them.”

Senior strong safety Darius Kelly remembers visiting Syracuse in December of 2012 when he was in the process of transferring from Pima Community College (Arizona). Reddish was his host.

He showed Kelly where he’d be living, took him to the Schine Student Center and they talked about Sbarro’s pizza, but otherwise Reddish didn’t say much.

Just under two years later, Reddish is the same in front of Kelly on the field as he was in the food court. It’s not that Reddish is standoffish. He joins his defensive teammates for NBA 2K and Madden tournaments, passes on trips to the movies — “I might just be home chilling,” he said — and jokes with Kelly, but under his breath.

He hears him on the field, though.

With about five minutes left in the first quarter of SU’s 16-6 loss to Clemson on Saturday, Reddish cut in front of CU quarterback Cole Stoudt’s deep pass down the right side of the field and popped the ball up in front of the 6-foot-4 Mike Williams before snaring it from the wide receiver.

Early in the second quarter against Clemson, Stoudt rolled to his right and picked out Adam Humphries, who Reddish promptly drilled, limiting the receiver to a 1-yard gain.

Said Kelly: “He has a little wild side when he gets on field.”

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Published on October 30, 2014 at 12:37 am

Contact Jacob: jmklinge@syr.edu | @Jacob_Klinger_