Model reduction of reacting flows looks for "slow manifolds" - by exploiting the fast/slow speed gap of the reaction system-so that some of the original ODEs can be replaced by algebraic equations. Control theory strives to determine some unknown control forces in a set of given ODEs in order to honor some user-specified behaviors- such as restricting the solutions to stay on some user-specified phase space surface (i.e. manifold). It is shown that some model reduction methodologies in reacting flows can be applied to control theory.