LOS ANGELES — Long before Julian Lewis was the heir apparent at quarterback USC, he was simply a seventh-grader playing ball at Pace Academy in Atlanta, and his father T.C. needed advice.

They’d written the script for Lewis since he was 7, chasing greatness. Life was calculated, decisions structured around football dreams. And as Lewis went through middle school, his father debated whether he should keep him at private-school Pace or turn elsewhere.

So he called a fellow quarterback dad for counsel: Caleb Williams’ father Carl.

Carl suggested Lewis stay put. T.C. decided to send Julian to Carrollton High in Georgia, a public school. But after Lewis’ freshman year at Carrollton, when USC coach Lincoln Riley approached T.C. with an idea for Lewis to reclassify from the class of 2026 to ‘25, T.C. consulted Carl again.

T.C. wanted his son to grow in what he calls AP football. And Caleb Williams has played AP football.

“Parents in athletics, some look at the easiest way – path of least resistance – to success,” T.C. said, “versus what I would call placing your kid in the fire.”

Years later, their scripts have intersected at USC, two quarterbacks with carefully plotted trajectories at opposite points in Riley’s vision. Williams is one step from his plan taking him to glory, set to throw at USC’s Pro Day on Wednesday. Lewis is one step from his plan taking him to the fire, a year of high school ball remaining before he follows in Williams’ size 12½ shoes at USC. But an eternity remains until the next signing day, and until the next phase of Lewis’ script is written.

Lewis’ verbal commitment to USC last summer is still firm, T.C. said. But Georgia has continued to push for him hard, and Lewis has continued to go on visits, weaving a wide-webbed network across ever-shifting college programs.

“If he is coached by Coach Riley,” T.C. told the Southern California News Group, “he will be in a position to accomplish every goal that he has set.”

If. 

No deviation from the plan

Speaking to media at the NFL combine two weeks ago, Williams sent shockwaves across the NFL landscape with a simple – and yet entirely logical – statement on not conducting traditional medical examinations at the combine. 32 teams couldn’t draft him, he said.

“There’s only one of me,” he said with a confident grin, noting he’d conduct medical examinations with individual franchises.

By Williams’ final year at USC, The Athletic reported Williams was making as much as $10 million from NIL deals. He has operated differently by design, for a decade, a path carefully mapped out and crafted around capitalizing upon his talent.

When he was about 12 years old – as he described in his 2022 Heisman Trophy speech – a tearful Williams sat in a hotel room with his father after a loss, devising a comprehensive plan to mold himself into the best quarterback possible. He applied for a training program called the QB Factory, located in the DMV area – District of Columbia, Maryland and Virginia – in Maryland and run by quarterback trainer Chris Baucia, grinding until 10 p.m. a few nights a week to throw. And when he was simply a freshman in high school, father Carl approached nonprofit director Patsy Mangus about helping consult on their “Caleb Cares” foundation, a pro-mental-health effort that forms the backbone of much of Williams’ public image.

“I think him and his dad did a great job with keeping his circle small, setting a plan, and really working that plan to its fullest,” Baucia told the SCNG, back in the fall.

A few years behind, but headed to the same destination, Lewis is following his.

The week Joey King took the head-coaching job at Carrollton, he got a call from an unknown number. It was T.C. Lewis: Hey, you don’t know anything about us, but we’re coming.

King had mentored Trevor Lawrence, a future No. 1 draft pick by the Jacksonville Jaguars, at Georgia’s Cartersville High; it was all T.C. needed to see. And Lewis started as a freshman for Carrollton, one of the top programs in Georgia, throwing 48 touchdowns in back-to-back seasons.

Williams’ signature play of high school ball, a legendary game-winning Hail Mary to beat DeMatha High in 2018, was in part the craft of late nights working with Baucia, specifically honing a drill stepping up in the pocket and firing a deep ball. Lewis has been molded just the same – but while Williams has often popped off the page as a conductor within chaos, Lewis’ strengths are quieter, a hyper-quick processor who relishes in getting the ball out quick in tight angles.

“He believes, ‘If I’m accurate, a defense is going to have a hard time dealing with me,’” longtime quarterback trainer Ron Veal said.

Veal usually only took kids starting around age 10. But he started working with Lewis when his pupil was all of 7. They’d meet after school for workouts January through April, their routine so regimented that Veal can list it at the blink of an eye.

Stretching. 15-step-drop. Drops under center. Three-step drop: hitches, slants, outs. Five-step-drop: curls, digs, outs, posts.

“There was no deviation,” Veal said, “from that script.”

There has been little deviation from any. From the time Lewis started playing youth ball, he and his father were posting his highlights on Instagram.  After Georgia ruled in favor of allowing NIL deals for high school athletes in October, Lewis’ social media profile – 133k followers on Instagram – has quickly been parlayed into multiple endorsement deals.

“There’s intentionality behind everything that they’ve done,” King said, “from an early age.”

Stable situation with USC

The expectation for Lewis when they committed to USC, T.C. said, was to come in and matriculate behind Malachi Nelson, USC’s crown jewel in the class of 2023. Nelson would play two or three years, they anticipated, and then it’d be Lewis’ turn. A natural succession from Williams.

But Nelson, after a quiet freshman year manning the scout team, transferred to Boise State. Suddenly, with Lewis reclassifying to the class of 2025, the timeline has sped up rapidly. USC and Riley have shown clear faith in Holiday Bowl star Miller Moss, but he has just two years of eligibility remaining, and UNLV transfer Jayden Maiava is a question mark entering spring ball.

At the moment, USC seems in a fairly stable situation with Lewis. He’ll visit in two weeks, T.C. said, and is working toward scheduling an official visit likely in early June. And even if USC’s rebuild stumbles slightly in the team’s first year in the Big Ten, T.C. said that’d have “no bearing” on whether they’d stick to their commitment.

But Lewis has still been making his rounds, recently scheduling a visit to Georgia, as reported by 247Sports. Like everything, it’s been done with intention. Coaches change constantly, T.C. rationalized. What if Riley, or anyone, were to take an NFL job?

“Even under Coach Riley, it’s the third quarterback coach (at USC),” T.C. said. “So it’s like, people are like, ‘Oh, you guys are going on the road,’ and that’s what I try to explain to people. The only school with the same quarterback coach from last season is Georgia, Coach (Mike) Bobo. Everybody else has new offensive people.”

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USC’s strength in the NIL landscape, too, will likely play a factor in Lewis’ decision. If Lewis handled his on-field business, there’s no better market to earn endorsement deals, T.C. rationalized, seeing what Williams built. But a healthy donor collective was more so important, T.C. said, to attracting talent across the rest of the roster.

“Gotta have an O-line,” T.C. said. “Gotta have the other guys. So that’s more so what I’m worried about. It’s kinda like the Tom Brady approach … like, ‘I don’t need all the money.’”

Williams’ methods have been notable enough to turn national heads, consistently, for two seasons. But he isn’t the model, T.C. emphasized. If Lewis enters on Williams’ heels, USC could see a program-defining quarterback whose arrival has been even more precisely designed.

“I think his (path),” T.C. said, “is probably the most unique of any quarterback that’s coming through.”