LAKEWOOD — The kid was a kid again, drawing plays on his palm and dreams in the air.
“Hustle back!” Julian Lewis barked. “Hustle back now!”
The grade schoolers running wild crayon patterns in the end zone perked up their ears. Within seconds, Lewis’ clowder of cats was successfully herded and lined up near the 15-yard line, a row of forward leans waiting for the CU Buffs’ young quarterback to fire.
One kid ran a stumbling skinny post. Another staggered into a fly pattern. flicked his wrist, hitting the latter with the high arc of a paper wad finding an office trash can, leaving tiny strides unbroken. The second youngster clambered to a makeshift goal line and giggled past it.
“My man,” Lewis cried, “that’s a touchdown!”
“One minute until the next drill!” a voice over the public-address system bellowed.
“Everybody bring it in,” Lewis shouted. “Bring it in!”
For a man carrying the weight of an offense on a lean, 190-pound frame, the weight of Buffs football on 18-year-old shoulders, JuJu sure looked like one awful happy dude Saturday. And for a so-called “quiet” guy, Lewis, who turns 19 late next month, could often be heard chirping over stadium loudspeakers playing for the 253,000th time.
“It’s definitely going to be good for my spirit, trying to clear my mind,”
“But, I mean, everything that’s been needed to be done to get prepared for (CU) camp, and stuff like that, has already been done. It’s all just going to work now.”
The work started, curiously enough, on a Sunday in Colorado Springs, a blank canvas two hours and change south of Folsom Field. Deion Sanders’ fourth CU preseason camp opens with practices at Fountain-Fort Carson High School for a week before moving back to campus again.
“I took some pictures (with fans) at the airport, stuff like that,” Lewis said of a Front Range arrival slowed by . “But I think that all just comes with it, right?”
That and expectations. spent the last week of July, his last week of summer vacation, training in Atlanta. Agility. Strength. Fine-tuning.
“Just kind of putting the finishing touches on it,” Lewis’ father, T.C., explained. “It’s almost kind of an annual thing for us, always has been, to kind of check these last boxes for him and just be, ‘All right.’ Talked to his trainer the other day, and everybody’s like, ‘No, he’s ready.'”
JuJu was born ready, 18 going on 40, a child prodigy with eyes forever downfield, ahead of the curve. He was a 7-year-old who could throw a football 25 yards; a 14-year-old who took over a high-school offense in Georgia and piled up more than 4,000 passing yards as a freshman; a 17-year-old who enrolled at CU early so he could spend a spring with Big 12 defenders breathing down his neck.
In what should’ve been his senior season of prep ball, Lewis flashed sporadic but tangible on-field progress from August to November 2025 with the Buffs. The more JuJu played, the less awed — physically, mentally — he appeared. The same couldn’t be said for the rest of CU’s offense, so Sanders wound up overhauling that side of the ball from the top down — replacing longtime NFL play-caller Pat Shurmur with
If you’re curious how one of the most prodigious pro-style passers in prep football history transitions to a scheme that features join the club.
“I think the illusion is that Coach Marion is going to run what he’s always run, right?” T.C. said. “(And) that he has to.
“I mean, it’s not that (Julian) can’t move. (Julian) can obviously move. But it’s just (that) Coach Marion’s going to use him how he sees fit. And that’s what makes the most sense, I think. When you look at CU and what CU is and what CU has, I think everybody’s going to be excited by the team this year.”
“I think the Go-Go is a pretty well-balanced offense in terms of run, pass, RPOs, things like that,” JuJu added. “Every offense is different. But in terms of this correlation, of just diversity (in an) offense, I don’t think it gets more diverse than the Go-Go. So, I mean, I’ve done everything.”
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“I mean, right now … no NIL,” T.C. said. “The goal? No NIL (talk). No nothing. It’s all ball now. The main thing’s the main thing. Period. Point-blank.”
The main thing is locking down the Buffs’ QB1 spot and building on the four collegiate games last autumn, a taster in which Lewis posted a 122.0 passer rating and a 4-0 touchdown-to-interception ratio.
As harbingers go, you could do a lot worse than USC QB Jayden Maiava’s freshman season with UNLV in 2023, where Marion was the Rebels’ offensive coordinator. Maiava completed 63.5% of his throws with 17 touchdowns and 10 picks. The teen’s 8.7 yards per attempt and 147.1 passer rating both led the Mountain West three years ago.
Maiava offers prototypical NFL size (6-foot-4, 230 pounds), mind you, whereas Lewis is closer to the Drew Brees package. The former clocked a 4.75 40-yard-dash time in high school; JuJu’s game runs parallel a younger Shedeur when he’s right — using his legs to create time in the pocket. Can Lewis withstand a season’s worth of defensive abuse? If the plot thickens, it’s because JuJu’s main competitor, transfer Isaac Wilson, little brother of former Broncos QB Zach Wilson, was a dual-threat weapon at Corner Canyon High School in Utah.
“Coach Marion’s a phenomenal dude,” the elder Lewis said. “It’s not even about Go-Go, right? It’s football. And it’s just, you’ve got somebody who understands it. Who understands how to get his athletes the ball (and) has a passion for the position and the position that he’s in. There’s a difference.
“I mean, our trust is there with (Marion) 100%. And I spoke to him back when the portal opened, when he first got the job. And we believed in them collectively as a team.”
Dad doesn’t miss the small stuff. Or skimp on the homework. When Marion was hired, T.C. conferred with , who played under the CU coordinator in Vegas and had trained with Julian as kids.
“I’ve never considered myself to be the smartest dude in the room, but at the same time, I’ve got access to anybody I need in football,” the elder Lewis said. “We collectively sat down (and) we’re, like, ‘No, we’re in a good situation. We’re going to stick this out.'”
Through Manhattan snow and Lakewood heat. Turnout at Saturday’s camp defied 93-ish-degree temps and a Broncos fan event a few miles down the road. At least two Nebraskans turned up to work with Lewis, too. How’s that for a twist in the tale?
“To get an opportunity to give back to the youth is a blessing,” Lewis reflected. “As a kid, if I had an opportunity to go to college camps, I would have took advantage of that and have gone to Derrick Henry camps and random stuff like that — I couldn’t imagine stuff like that. So it’s just an opportunity to give them that chance.”
The kids dug it. Officials said more than 250 campers pre-registered, and the Lewises hope, with the help of partners such as and , to make it an annual event along the Front Range.
This wasn’t Lewis’ first outreach to Denver hearts. Last year, the CU quarterback to launch the nonprofit . “Coco” is named for Coco, Lewis’ beloved miniature dachshund. Not long after JuJu moved to Boulder in 2025, Coco suffered severe dehydration, digestive complications and blood loss. The Lewises wound up spending more than $10,000 in vet bills to get Coco — JuJu’s rock, his light, his muse — right again. She’s 16 now. The best girl.
“People were always, ‘He’s not that vocal,’ right?” T.C. said. “But he hasn’t had to be. He’s always proved it with how he plays and how he responds to the moment. And that’s what kind of galvanizes everyone around him. It’s like this silent work ethic that (his high-school coach was) like, ‘He’s just going to be the most consistent dude every day, at the end of the day.'”
Although the loudest voice out on the field on Saturday afternoon, truth be told, wasn’t JuJu’s at all. The big pipes belonged to a young man trying feverishly to grab the signal-caller’s attention.
“JUJU!”
“HEYYYYYYYY! JUJU!”
The voice happened to be waiting in line to run a specific drill: Catch the ball and keep hanging onto the rock while two other defenders whack you like a pinata with these giant blue pads. Lewis had just spent a few reps holding one of the pads.
“JUU-JUUUUU!”
Lewis nodded.
“I got it, I got it,” the Buffs quarterback said. “That was a TD. My bad.”
With that, the kid grinned. A blank canvas needs its sunrise, and Lewis is ready to Go-Go.
