Does the Colorado Buffaloes coaching staff trust Julian Lewis?

The Colorado Buffaloes walked out of Atlanta with a season-opening upset victory over Georgia Tech. Julian Lewis delivered the kind of final-minute heroics that will define his highlight reel for years, a perfectly placed touchdown pass to Charlie Williams that gave CU the lead and ultimately the win.

It was the moment that mattered most. But the 59 minutes that preceded it told a very different story about how the coaching staff views its 18-year-old quarterback right now.

On a recent edition of “Dover and Cecil” on 104.3 The Fan, hosts Josh Dover and Cecil Lammey dug into the game plan the Buffs deployed against the Yellow Jackets, and what it revealed about where Lewis stands within the offense heading into the rest of the season.

The numbers paint a clear picture. CU ran the football 49 times for 183 yards. They threw it just 27 times for 124 yards. Lewis completed only 14 of those 27 attempts. Outside of the game-winning touchdown, his passing performance was scattered and inconsistent, the kind of stat line that explains why the coaching staff leaned so heavily on the ground game in the first place.

Dover didn’t sugarcoat his read on the strategy.

“Boy, do they not trust that quarterback that is Julian Lewis,” Dover said.

He then walked through the repetitive nature of the play calling that defined the afternoon.

“They wanted to run the ball, and they wanted to run the ball, and they wanted to run the ball a little bit more. And Georgia Tech couldn’t do anything to stop them all game long,” Dover said.

To Dover’s credit, the run game worked. Georgia Tech had no answer for it. The Buffs controlled the clock, moved the chains and kept Lewis out of situations where his inconsistencies could cost the team. It was a smart game plan built around the reality of who this team currently is, a squad with a young, unproven quarterback and a coaching staff that would rather grind out a win on the ground than risk turnovers through the air.

Lammey, however, pushed back on the framing that the coaching staff doesn’t trust Lewis.

“I don’t think it’s a trust thing with Julian Lewis. I just think that’s where he’s at right now,” Lammey said.

That is a subtle but meaningful distinction. Dover sees a coaching staff that doesn’t believe in its quarterback. Lammey sees a coaching staff that is building toward believing in him, but isn’t there yet.

“I would say that trust with the coaching staff has to be built. You know what I mean? He’s a young quarterback, so they’re gonna run the hell out of the ball because they have a young quarterback. Not because they don’t trust Julian, they don’t trust him yet,” Lammey said.

The difference between “they don’t trust him” and “they don’t trust him yet” is where the optimism lives for CU fans. Lewis is 18 years old. Saturday was his first game really leading a program that has been through more turbulence over the past three years than most Power Four teams experience in a decade. Expecting him to walk onto the field as a polished passer who commands the full confidence of his coaching staff was never realistic.

What is realistic is that the game-winning drive, the poise, the execution, the accuracy on the throw that mattered most, gave Lewis something to build on and gave the coaching staff something to point to when the conversation about expanding his role inevitably begins.

The Buffs won the game running the football. That’s a viable strategy against certain opponents. But as the schedule gets harder and the defenses get better, CU is eventually going to need Lewis to carry more of the offensive load through the air. Whether the coaching staff opens that door gradually or keeps leaning on the run game will say everything about how quickly the trust Lammey described is actually being built.

Lewis delivered when it counted. Now the question is whether that moment earns him more opportunities, or whether the coaching staff saw enough in the other 26 pass attempts to keep handing the ball off 49 times a game.

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