JuJu Lewis' commitment to Colorado gives Deion Sanders, Buffaloes the perfect Shedeur replacement
The Colorado Buffaloes scored a massive recruiting victory on Thursday, as quarterback Julian "JuJu" Lewis committed to come to Boulder next season.
Lewis is a 4-star quarterback in the 247 Composite rankings, and is listed as the no. 36 overall prospect and sixth-best quarterback in the 2025 class. He's a player who is right on the fringes of the five-star list, depending on where you look; ESPN and Rivals both list the soon-to-be freshman as a five-star recruit, and both also rank the quarterback as a top ten overall prospect.
The big knock on Sanders' tenure with the Buffaloes thus far has been that his teams appear to be built to win now. They're transfer-heavy and light on high school recruits, and it's led to rampant speculation that Coach Prime is planning to bolt from Boulder like Ralphie from his pen once his son, current Colorado starting quarterback Shedeur Sanders is drafted in the NFL.
While Lewis' won't silence those rumblings, it should quiet them for a little while, because he is the perfect player to replace Sanders as Colorado's quarterback of the future.
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Take a look at Lewis' scouting report from 247. He's described as a player who is "an elite distributor of the football with his quick release and advanced mechanics," and who "excels at throwing with pace and precision to the first-and-second-levels." On top of that, Lewis primarily uses his legs when he senses pressure to slip away from defenders, rather than as a playmaker. He also needs work on his deep passes, as he's capable of making them, but has struggled with consistent touch on them.
Then take a gander at ESPN's scouting report on Shedeur is that he''s a quarterback who excels in a spread offense, where his superior accuracy on short and intermediate throws. He's a good athlete but not a run-first quarterback, capable of slipping away from the pass rush but mostly using his legs as a means to open up opportunities in the passing game, rather than as an actual rushing threat (think CJ Stroud, rather than Lamar Jackson). His deep ball is improving, but is still a work in progress, and his big strength remains his accuracy on those short-to-intermediate passes.
In other words, Coach Prime has just landed a player whose skill set is practically identical to Shedeur's. A player who can step in and quickly take up the mantle of Colorado's next big thing at quarterback, in a system where a player with those skills has shown he can excel.
While Deion staying at Colorado in the long term still feels unlikely, Lewis' commitment shows that, at least for now, he's likely planning to stick around for at least another year or two, and that we can expect the Buffaloes' upward trajectory to continue, even after Shedeur and Travis Hunter go to the NFL.
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