2025 No. 1 Recruit Julian Lewis Visiting Indiana Sunday

Indiana football is scheduled to host a visit Sunday for Julian Lewis, the nation's No. 1 overall player in the 2025 ESPN Junior 300 rankings.

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. – Curt Cignetti and the new Indiana football coaching staff will have a big-time visitor on campus this weekend.

Julian Lewis, the class of 2025's No. 1 overall player, is scheduled to visit Bloomington on Sunday, as first reported by 247Sports' Steve Wiltfong.

Lewis, a 6-foot-1 and 195-pound quarterback, sits atop the 2025 ESPN Junior 300 rankings. He was previously in the class of 2026, but reclassified to 2025 in January and remained the nation's top recruit.

Though he's verbally committed to USC, Lewis is still taking visits all over the country. Before coming to Indiana, Lewis is scheduled to visit Georgia on Saturday and may visit Alabama on Friday, according to Wiltfong. He also recently took visits to Auburn and Colorado.

Lewis attends Carrollton High School in Georgia, near the Alabama border. ESPN lists him as a pocket passer, and he has certainly put up impressive passing numbers in high school. 

As a freshman, he completed 283-of-432 (65.5%) attempts for 4,118 yards, 48 touchdowns and 12 interceptions in 15 games. Most recently, Lewis completed 186-of-280 (66.4%) attempts for 3,094 yards, 48 touchdowns and two interceptions in 13 games as a sophomore, according to MaxPreps.

When Cignetti took over as Indiana's head coach, he brought a significant portion of his James Madison staff to Bloomington. Most relevant to Lewis' recruitment, that included quarterbacks coach Tino Sunseri and offensive coordinator Mike Shanahan. A connection to Sunseri is a big reason for Indiana's recruitment of Lewis.

“Coach Tino is my guy, I’ve known him since I was eight-years old," Lewis said in an interview with Wiltfong of 247Sports. "He’s honestly the first college coach to notice me.”

Indiana's quarterback room has gone through some reshuffling since the coaching change from Tom Allen to Cignetti. Starter Brendan Sorsby transferred to Cincinnati, and former starter Dexter Williams II transferred to Georgia Southern.

Tayven Jackson returns to Indiana for his redshirt sophomore year, and Broc Lowry is back for his redshirt freshman year. But the remaining scholarship quarterbacks are new, including Ohio transfer Kurtis Rourke, who Indiana landed in the transfer portal to compete for the starting job. 

Freshman Tyler Cherry – Indiana's second highest-ranked quarterback recruit of all time behind Donaven MCCulley – will leave Center Grove High School a semester early to join the Hoosiers for spring practice. Another class of 2024 quarterback recruit, Alberto Mendoza, will be at Indiana for fall camp. 

Indiana athletic director Scott Dolson said he looked for a coach with experience working with quarterbacks, and Cignetti checked that box. 

At James Madison, in 2021, quarterback Cole Johnson set the school's single-season records for passing yards, touchdowns and completions and won CAA Offensive Player of the Year. When James Madison moved up to the FBS and Sun Belt Conference in 2022, Todd Centeio won Offensive Player of the Year. And Jordan McCloud won Sun Belt Player of the Year in 2023.

“Right now, quarterbacks are attracted to us,” Cignetti said. “Because when you take four different guys in five years and they're all Player of the Year in the conference and they all have different styles, they recognize that you do a great job of developing quarterbacks. That's a credit to Tino Sunseri, our quarterback coach, and Mike Shanahan, offensive coordinator, and I'm involved in that a little bit too."

Carrollton Trojans quarterback Julian Lewis (10) drops back to pass against the Westlake Lions during the first half at Grisham Stadium / John David Mercer-USA TODAY Sports

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