Elite 2026 QB Julian Lewis visited Texas football this week

One of the top early recruits in the 2026 class is the elite Carrollton (GA) quarterback Julian Lewis, who is one of the top targets on the recruiting trail for Texas football and head coach Steve Sarkisian. Texas reportedly hosted Lewis on an unofficial visit for the first time in 2023 earlier this week.

A report from Justin Wells of Inside Texas on April 6 (paid content) detailed the unofficial trip that Lewis took to the Forty Acres on April 5. This piece from IT’s Wells mentioned the connection that Lewis has with Sark and the rest of the Texas coaches.

"“I built a relationship with coach (Steve Sarkisian) when he was at Alabama, so it carried over to Texas.”"

Lewis also has a relationship that goes back more than a year with Texas QB coach AJ Milwee. Texas has some of the better relationships with Lewis and his camp of any of the top programs that have offered him early in his recruitment.

Granted, Lewis’ recruitment is different than most other kids since he was getting offers as a middle-schooler from the likes of the Florida Gators, Penn State Nittany Lions, and Georgia Bulldogs, among others.

Texas football hosts elite 2026 QB prospect Julian Lewis on a visit for the first time in 2023

Texas was one of the early Power Five offers that Lewis received. He was offered by the Longhorns during an unofficial trip that he took to Austin last summer, specifically on June 13.

Lewis also made a return visit to the 40 last fall, to see the Longhorns handily defeat the West Virginia Mountaineers at DKR on Oct. 1.

That unofficial trip for the West Virginia game in early October was the last visit that Lewis made to Austin prior to the one earlier this week.

Moreover, there is still the looming question as to whether Lewis will reclassify to join the 2025 class in the near future. We talked about that possibility on the site before as Lewis would not be the first highly coveted QB prospect to jump a year ahead in recent memory. Even Quinn Ewers made the move a couple of years ago to reclassify from the 2022 class to 2021 to enroll a year early at Ohio State.

At the moment, it looks like Texas sits in a top group of schools in the race to land a commitment from Lewis that also includes the Alabama Crimson Tide, Georgia Bulldogs, Florida, and Florida State Seminoles. He has visited each of those five aforementioned schools at least three times unofficially since the start of 2022.