Dallas Renegades fans are still going crazy over the spectacular performance of their new starting quarterback, Austin Reed, in Week 1 after the team blew out the Houston Gamblers 36-17.

Reed finished completing 65% of his passes for a UFL regular season record 376 yards and three touchdowns to zero interceptions with a passer rating of 120.4. It was truly one of the best performances from a quarterback in spring football and one that put him on the map around the league.

Despite all that success, the focus shifts to Week 2 as the Renegades play a rare Tuesday night game against the St. Louis Battlehawks. Reed took some time with reporters just one day before the game to talk about his Week 1 performance and how he plans to move forward from it.

Renegades QB Austin Reed talks Week 1 performance and prepping against the Battlehawks

There was a lot of attention on Reed’s feelings regarding breaking a UFL record as well as being named the league’s Week 1 Offensive Player of the Week. For Reed, it was nice, but his focus is on the next nine games of the regular season.

“Yeah, I think just remembering that, you know, it was one week. I know I’ve seen a lot of players have a really good one week and then play bad for the next eight or nine weeks, and it kind of gets forgotten about. So for me, it’s all about, you know, we’re playing one week at a time, and Week 1 was cool, but now week 1 is over. And so for us, we, we came to win 12 games. We didn’t come here to win one game, and we came here to win the championship, not to set records in Week 1.”

Even with the great performance last week, there was some acknowledgment after the game from Reed and his head coach, Rick Neuheisel, that there are still things to work on. UFL News Hub asked Reed about what he saw in his film study of the Gamblers game that he liked and what he can work on.

“Yeah, you know, I obviously was happy with myself when I got the ball out of my hands on time and got it into our players’ hands, and they could make plays. There was a couple plays where I feel like maybe just eyes were slow, late to a throw and/or late to a read, and therefore like the guy was covered up by the time I got to it. Sometimes with some of the pocket stuff, I felt like I could have been bouncing around a little bit back there. And, you know, I’m all about having rhythm in the pocket, but you also need to be firm in there sometimes and climb up. Just a couple things. And some of these things are things like, ‘Hey, first time playing a four-quarter game in two years,’ like you’re finding your feet. But other things that are like, ‘Hey, like you can’t make that mistake. Hey, you need to get there quicker. Hey, your eyes need to be quicker. Hey, your feet need to be better.’ So I mean, then that’s— football is a game that is played by imperfect people searching after a perfect achievement.”

Now with the Battlehawks at the top of his mind, Reed shared with UFL News Hub what he has seen in that St. Louis defense after coming off a seven-sack performance in the 16-10 win over the DC Defenders.

“They played really well against DC, looked really good. You know, like I told someone, when you turn on the film, you can always tell how much a team likes playing football by how much they fly around. And you can tell with St. Louis’ defense, they love football, and they enjoy playing football. And you can tell it on the tape, like they fly around, they’re super, super physical. Defensive line obviously had a really good game against DC and has some really good players. And then their back end was able to cause Jordan (Ta’amu) to make a couple mistakes and make and capitalize on those. So, you know, we have— we feel like this is going to be a test.”

An interesting thought is that after a record-breaking game like that, there would be some assumptions that NFL teams would start calling to gauge his interest in joining their teams. Reed told UFL News Hub that he will not have that mindset until after the season is over.

“Yeah, I mean, you know, with all that stuff, I think that’s such a dangerous game to play. For me, I’m such a believer in being where your feet are. And I’m also a huge believer that like team success leads to individual success. For me, like I am, let’s go 12-0, let’s win the UFL championship. And then after the year, if that opportunity comes around, like cool, then we’ll look at it then. I think when you start living in that world of like, okay, I’m playing in the UFL, while I’m playing in the UFL, I’m thinking about what the NFL is thinking of me at the same time is when you start to just get in this like dangerous game. And that’s a game I’ve played before my senior year of college, where I was like, every game I thought, what’s the NFL thinking of me while I’m playing these games? This is the first time I’ve started playing as a quarterback since 2023 at Western Kentucky. And you have no idea how many years you have going forward in your football career to be a starting quarterback. So for me, it’s like I’m just enjoying being the starting quarterback of the Dallas Renegades and playing a ton of football, and us trying to win games. And so that’s the main focus.”

Reed will have a chance to show that Week 1 was not a fluke at Toyota Stadium in Week 2 action against the Battlehawks on Tuesday at 7:00 pm CST on FS1.