It has been a wild ride for 2025 Carrollton (Ga.) High School quarterback Julian “Ju Ju” Lewis who committed to the Colorado Buffaloes on Thursday. Lewis was previously committed to the USC Trojans, but opted to decommit from the program this past Sunday. Obviously, a huge victory for head coach Deion Sanders, who won out over Indiana for the talented passer.

Behind the scenes, this is a recruitment that has sent a major chain reaction across 2025 quarterback recruiting, and we are beginning to finally figure out what the landscape will end up looking like. We are only a few weeks away from National Signing Day so there is still a lot of chaos to ensure, but obviously, Lewis is a huge domino.

It’s just a domino that has been falling for some time now, and it was only a matter of where and when he flipped, and not if.

Thinking back to the summer, Lewis was deeply involved with the Auburn Tigers at the time. There was no secret that they were infatuated with the 6-0, 185-pound signal caller and he reciprocated that interest in a big way. Around the beginning of June, Auburn was the pick by many to flip Lewis from USC. There was a very good reason for that.

The Lewis family had been in deep discussions with Auburn, a verbal pledge had happened behind the scenes, and the last touch to making the flip happen was solidifying terms of the NIL package. The money wasn’t the hurdle, and was agreed upon for both sides. Contractually there was a difference that both sides couldn’t meet in the middle on.

That long negotiation process was met with a standstill, and Auburn wouldn’t budge on the final terms. Instead, Auburn decided to move on. From there, both Colorado and Indiana became the two biggest players for Lewis with a little Georgia Bulldogs sprinkled in. The Buffaloes held the pulse of the recruitment for several weeks leading up until this point.

Colorado ends up with Lewis, who is considered to be a five-star player by both ESPN and Rivals, coming in as the No. 2 and No. 6 overall player in the 2025 recruiting class. Lewis has thrown for 2,842 yards and 40 touchdowns during his senior season. That includes another two rushing scores on the ground.

If not for the difference in the negotiation phase, the Deuce Knight push would have never happened for the Auburn Tigers. He was a backup option along with Texas commit KJ Lacey, with Knight eventually opting for the Tigers after several months of cold feet.

Funny enough, the Lewis situation may have put them in an awful situation down the stretch. Knight is rumored to potentially flip to Ole Miss leading up to National Signing Day in December. It would be the second flip for Knight this cycle after originally pledging to Notre Dame in September of last year.

With only a couple of weeks left, where will Auburn turn? There is little time to recover, and there needs to be a question for whether they will be able to make a flip happen in general. Knight will put the final blow to their 2025 quarterback lapse, but it began with Lewis.

That decision by Ju Ju also impacted the Texas Longhorns. When it became aware that Lacey was one of the main quarterbacks that Auburn was targeting, the Longhorns were forced to act behind the scenes. In order to make sure that Lacey wasn’t a part of the next course of action, they needed to incentivize further why Austin, Texas was the place for the Alabama star.

Indiana also will need to figure out their next steps with 2025 quarterback recruiting. While Georgia does hold a commitment from Ohio signal caller Ryan Montgomery, they are also continuing to pursue other options for the class, including Stanford commit Bear Bachmeier. Notre Dame has also already found their Knight replacement in former Clemson pledge Blake Hebert.

It only takes one rock to make a ripple effect in a pond. The Lewis recruitment has done just that, chasing chaos leading up to the end of the cycle. The recruiting world never sleeps, but it can rest for a split second while Boulder has found its future under center.