Trainer | 2025 Notre Dame DE Target Joseph Reiff's Future Is Bright
FIST Football Academy is a different kind of training facility, especially for defensive linemen.
And, according to Ben Salomon, Joseph Reiff is a different kind of defensive lineman.
That’s probably why the two are such a good fit.
Salomon, the director of the defensive line at FIST, has been working with Reiff since the top 2025 Illinois prospect was in middle school.
“He never moved like a seventh-grader,” Salmon says. “He always was just very mature athletically. As a seventh-grader, he would train with some really impressive kids. Just thinking about a lot of the kids we've worked with and trained with regularly.
“You have a number of Division-I athletes on both sides of the ball who have come out of the Chicago area. He never looked out of place even though he was a few years younger than them all.”
Reiff is certainly grateful for the opportunity both Salomon and FIST co-owner Kevin Sabo have provided him.
“I think they just surrounded me with the right people,” says Reiff. “There’s not a single bad football player in that gym. They bring in great players and Coach Salomon and Coach Sabo are great coaches. I love what they do. I really appreciate what they’ve done for me.”
While Salomon obviously puts a great deal of effort physically training his clients, he devotes a significant portion of his time schooling them on the game, the position and what their opponents are trying to do to them.
“To the outside eye, if they were to just kind of pop into a session, a lot of the stuff may seem a little bit unorthodox, but it's about teaching as much as anything else and working things into progressions, breaking it down as much as possible, then building it back into the bigger picture,” he explains.
Reiff is especially good at understanding it all.
“The biggest thing that always impresses me about Joe is you can tell when you're explaining and teaching something that he is really, really, really processing it,” says Salomon. “You can tell he's trying to really, really, really understand what you're saying.
“He picks it up super fast.”
And of course, the 6-foot-5, 235-pounder wouldn’t have offers from schools like Notre Dame, Northwestern, Iowa and Purdue if he didn’t check the physical boxes too.
“He obviously has all the measurables and has for a while,” says Salomon. “He's going to continue to grow. By the time he's actually headed to wherever he's going, it's kind of crazy to imagine just how big he's going to be, just how filled out he'll already be.”
Salomon says Reiff reminds him of what current Notre Dame defensive lineman Rylie Mills looked like as a high-schooler.
“His size, the way he moves and carries his size at such a young age, how much larger that frame is going to get and just how much size he's going to be able to pack on and still be really quick and twitchy and mobile,” says Salomon.
Reiff, who camped at Notre Dame and earned an offer in June, returned to South Bend for last month’s Grill & Chill event.
According to Salomon, Reiff checks the intangible boxes as well.
“He is incredibly respectful, incredibly well-spoken,” the coach says. “He's just very thoughtful. He's not your rah-rah kind of guy, but no matter where he goes, he's very much going to to lead by example. He's got a tremendous work ethic and he's also just very smart.
“He comes from a great family. His dad was a defensive lineman at Northwestern, so it's in the genetics and he set a great example growing up just about how to act and handle everything and the attention he's getting.”
According to Salomon, whoever gets Reiff will be lucky.
“They would just be getting a really, really, really special kid.”
Reiff considers himself the lucky one.
“Without Coach Salomon’s help, I don’t think I’d be where I am right now. He’s taught me a lot.”
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