Deion Sanders hiring Brennan Marion could prove to be the best thing to ever happen to Julian Lewis.
The Colorado quarterback has more much on his plate than the average redshirt freshman. Lewis is tasked with being the face of Coach Prime’s football program and helping fans forget about a disappointing 2025 season, all while learning a brand-new offense.
That’s the kind of pressure that could burst certain pipes and that’s why Brennan Marion is the perfect offensive coordinator to help Julian Lewis reach his tantalizing potential.
“There’s quarterback-friendly plays, there’s advantage throws, there’s so much within the game now that you can help a young quarterback really be successful and not force him to be Dan Marino day one,” Brennan Marion said after Colorado’s second practice of fall camp.
“He doesn’t have to do all that because we have a lot of good people around him. We filled the room with talent around him so he can play free and not feel like I have to hold the ball extra long or I have to do too much.”
Brennan Marion has recent experience with this kind of delicate situation.
When he was the offensive coordinator at UNLV in 2023, Marion helped redshirt freshman QB Jayden Maiava throw for 3,085 yards and 17 TDs. Now at USC, Maiava is viewed as one of the top QBs in college football.
That UNLV offense in 2023 led the Mountain West in scoring (34.4 points per game) largely because opponents couldn’t zero in on just one facet of Marion’s offense.
The Rebels had a 1,000-yard receiver, two running backs with 500-plus rushing yards and seven players with 50-plus touches. Maiava was also sacked just 11 times all year.
It’s what Brennan Marion is trying to replicate in Boulder to help Julian Lewis flourish, just like he did with Maiva.
“We built a new offensive line in front of him,” Brennan Marion said. “We put better skill players on the outside, no offense to anybody who left. In running back room, we have guys that can get downhill and get those tough yards.
“Obviously, the run game helps. The defense helps, right? Like all those things help a young quarterback not feel like I have to go out there and throw it 40 to 50 times to go win the game. If we can keep him somewhere in that 30 to 40 range where he’s not throwing the ball every single play because bad things happen, right, when you keep throwing the ball over and over and over again, right?”
Bad things rarely happened when Julian Lewis threw the ball as a true freshman. He had zero turnovers and just two turnover-worthy plays all season, according to Pro Football Focus, but that doesn’t mean he shouldn’t be supported with a dynamic rushing attack.
That will be arguably the biggest question facing Brennan Marion at Colorado: can he save the Buffs’ run game? A run game that has ranked dead last in FBS in two of the last three seasons.
If he can, Julian Lewis will be able to execute the Go-Go offense at a high level.
“You can wear a defense down with running the ball,” Brennan Marion said. “You can throw shots down the field because they have to come be in the box and give him advantage reads to see based off of our formation.”
Julian Lewis is off to a strong start in fall camp, showing an understanding of the new offensive system. Although he’s without his top two targets — Danny Scudero and Kam Perry — for the moment, Lewis is building a nice connection with Texas transfer WR DeAndre Moore Jr. and returning tight end Zach Atkins.
But no matter how many yards or TDs Julian Lewis throws for this season, the only metric that really matters to Marion is wins.
“There’s things there that are set up for him to make sure that he doesn’t have to just play hero ball, that he can be a point guard, distribute the ball and go help his team win,” Brennan Marion said of Julian Lewis. “That’ll help him build confidence. You build confidence by winning.
“I don’t think he built a lot of confidence by throwing for 300 yards and not winning the game, right? At the end of the day, the best quarterback stat is winning.”
