How Alabama is staying in the race for USC 5-star QB commit Julian Lewis

The recruitment of Carrollton (Ga.) five-star quarterback Julian Lewis continues to make waves. The elite signal-caller remains committed to USC, but a quartet of schools are trying to change that.

Alabama, Auburn, Colorado and Georgia are all gunning for the 6-foot-0.5, 180-pounder. He’s already made trips to some of those schools this year and is planned to visit each again in the coming weeks. Last week, he was back in Tuscaloosa.

Lewis has made his fair share of trips to see the SEC powerhouse, but things were different this go-round. There’s a new coaching staff in town — one that’s doing its best to re-garner the recruiting momentum that Nick Saban had for years on end. New skipper Kalen DeBoer and Co. are building new relationships with the five-star.

“All the feedback has been good,” Alabama insider Tim Watts said on ‘The Inside Scoop’. “To be clear, this is a guy that’s pretty comfortable at the University of Alabama. He’s visited off and on over the years, so there’s not a lot to learn as far as the city, the campus and all that kind of stuff. What he’s coming to see is DeBoer’s offense. (Offensive coordinator) Nick Sheridan, the play-calling.

…That’s the one thing that was the most interesting to him — and he got a lot of that. He got a lot of discussion with DeBoer, Sheridan. And, he got to see the proof is in the pudding, exactly what they’re going to be doing.”

Lewis has continued to show interest in the Crimson Tide despite the departure of Saban. He even made his way to T-Town a day early just so he could have extra time to meet with DeBoer and get a feel for what the new era of Alabama football was going to look like.

“He’s down to earth,” Lewis said of DeBoer to On3’s Chad Simmons. “You can tell he cares about his players and wants guys to be successful.”

Lewis could follow former teammate to Alabama

One clear advantage the Crimson Tide have that none of the other contenders in Lewis’ recruitment do is true freshman tight end Caleb Odom. The five-star signed with Bama in December and could prove to be a major recruiting tool for DeBoer when it comes to trying to flip Lewis.

“The interesting thing for (Lewis), I think, is his former teammate, Caleb Odom, is on the team — and not only on the team, he’s a true freshman but he’s shining. You hear a lot people, veterans on the team bragging about how well he’s done,” Watts said. “So they’ve got that working in their favor, cause he can give (Lewis) an inside view and everything else.”

Across two seasons at Carrollton, the pair proved to be a menacing combination. Odom caught 111 passes for over 1,800 yards and 25 touchdowns. Lewis has thrown for over 7,000 yards and a whopping 96 scores.

Lewis told Simmons that he linked up with Odom upon his arrival to Tuscaloosa to talk about the program. The No. 9 overall prospect still has multiple visits to work through with other programs and is still pledged to USC, but confidence is clearly growing once again with the Crimson Tide as they look for what would be the biggest flip of the 2025 cycle.