Julian Lewis’ CU future in doubt as transfer speculation grows
Julian Lewis’ season in Colorado hasn’t gone the way many had hoped it would.
The five-star recruit was supposed to be the future of the Colorado Buffaloes’ football program. With a new offensive coordinator in town, everything seemed to be aligning for Lewis to take that leap this season. However, his time in the spotlight turned out to be very limited.
The four games he started resulted in mixed, and sometimes ugly, results, yet Lewis’ benching still raised eyebrows.
At just 19 years old, Lewis still has plenty to learn; however, the redshirt freshman likely deserved a better chance to develop in Brennan Marrion’s “Go-Go” system.
Young quarterbacks almost always need time to adjust and make themselves comfortable when facing stronger competition, a theme that we see every year with top freshmen recruits and even rookies in the NFL.
Lewis was only given three full games this year, which is not nearly enough for a quarterback trying to adapt to a new offensive system and prove himself in his first full season as a starter.
What happened after Lewis’ benching only made the situation stranger.
Many believed that he would return to his starting role following the Buffaloes’ bye week. After all, he did win Big 12 Freshman of the Week after his performance vs. Weber State.
Instead, junior Isaac Wilson was announced as the starter and has remained so up until this point. Given Lewis’ talent and cemented role as Colorado's quarterback entering the season, it’s hard to believe that his benching was entirely related to his performance through the first four games.
When Colorado head coach Deion Sanders was asked if Julian Lewis would get another shot, he simply stated: “That’s on him.”
Sanders has been private about the situation since Lewis’ benching.
“I would love JuJu to come in here and tell you what happened,” Sanders said after being asked about the situation.
The consistently cryptic responses are cause for belief that the current situation goes much deeper than Lewis’ on-field performance to start the season.
Now that Lewis’ and Sanders' relationship appears to be slightly fractured, rumors are starting to swirl that Lewis could enter the transfer portal next season and be out of the picture entirely.
Colorado looks as if they may have wasted a five-star talent and will have to explore more quarterback options going forward.
The story took another twist on Oct. 28, when it was announced that Lewis was rushed to a local hospital after suffering a medical emergency in practice. Any hopes that he would be reinstated as the starter in the near future were dismissed following this news.
While it’s still up in the air whether Lewis has played his final snap for the Buffaloes, the controversies of his season so far lead many to believe that his time in Boulder might be up.
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