Deion Sanders’ QB Makes Feelings Clear on Brennan Marion’s UNLV Protégé Running Colorado Offense
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When the 2025 season ended, folks in Boulder realized it wasn’t a QB problem; it was how former OC Pat Shurmur was running the offense. Head coach Deion Sanders knew if they wanted to get a shot at the Big 12 title, the OC had to go. Coach Prime brought in Brennan Marion. The first order of spring business under Brennan was getting UNLV protégé Hajj-Malik Williams to train former five-star QB Julian Lewis. After their first day of spring training, the redshirt freshman shared his thoughts on Williams.
“I’ve known Hajj-Malik since I was six years old,” Juju said when asked about his opinion of Hajj-Malik after his March 4th practice. “I think Hajj is seven years, eight years older than me or something. You know, he’s like a big brother to me. But we grew up training together, so bringing him in is, like I said, it’s kind of like having an older brother—somebody I can lean on. I can look to him when I need a tip about Coach Marion.”
Juju Lewis doubled down on the praise and how the players in the building are feeling about this hire.
“I think people know him. He has his offense, he has his personality, but just having that right-hand guy who’s experienced it and just understands the offense—you could hear it from a player—it feels good.”
While it hasn’t been officially confirmed whether he is a permanent graduate assistant (GA) or a full-time coach, he has been actively working with the quarterbacks since yesterday. He’s basically in Boulder to act as a ‘right-hand man’ to help the current players master Marion’s unique ‘Go-Go’ offense.
For casuals, coach Marion and Hajj-Malik go all the way back to the 2024 season at UNLV. And boy, Malik ran the Go-Go like nobody else. In his sole season in Las Vegas, he threw for almost 2,000 yards and 19 touchdowns and added another 851 yards and 9 touchdowns on the ground. He led the Rebels to their first Top 25 ranking in UNLV’s history.
Before making the jump to coaching this spring, Williams was busy chasing his own pro dreams. After going undrafted in the 2025 NFL Draft, he had a brief stint with the Las Vegas Raiders as a free agent before playing a season with the Ottawa Redblacks in Canadian football. Hajj-Malik’s coming to Boulder has been a tenfold blessing for Lewis.
The ‘go-go offense’ formation is a bit complex, and that’s precisely why it’s working well. Marion loves to use weird formations and high-tempo spread offense combined with a downhill running game. JuJu admitted that having Hajj-Malik there to explain the “why” behind the scheme has made his life ten times easier.
Instead of just memorizing plays, JuJu is learning the art of the system. And to protect the QB, OC Marion already gave a warning to the defensive line corps not to hit Juju by any means while mastering his offense.
“You need each other to make that happen. Stay off the QB … but D-line, keep whooping our a** up front.”
Needless to say, the Go-Go offense has already paid dividends in their spring practice. The former 5-QB is already flexing his chemistry with his targets, like Joseph Williams and Sincere Brown. And a lot of that timing comes from the technical ‘quarterback-to-quarterback’ tips Hajj-Malik is dropping during every practice session.
At the end of the day, the goal of bringing Hajj is to make sure the headaches of last year’s offense stay in the past. Juju also gave his opinion about the Go-go offense and its engineer.
Juju Lewis drops his two cents on the first outlook of the Go-Go offense and their OC
When asked about what his relationship with Brennan Marion is like, Juju didn’t shy away.
“Marion is a great guy, great leader. It’s always better coming from somebody with real football experience. So knowing Coach Marion was a receiver, just hearing his point of view coming from the receiver side, it doesn’t get any better than that—knowing what he’s done with quarterbacks. And you can’t really talk back to anything he says. I mean, you just got to listen.”
As for the new “Go-Go” offense, JuJu’s first impression was that it looked “beautiful” on paper. He admitted that once he actually started running it in the “NCAA playbook” style, it was a bit of a “goodness, what is this?” moment because of how fast and complex it is. Even though it’s “crazy” to learn with all the different progressions and defensive reads, he’s been loving the challenge and thinks it’s going to be an exciting, high-scoring system for the Buffs.
One of the coolest parts for JuJu is the relationship he’s building with Marion. He mentioned that since Marion has such a proven track record with developing quarterbacks, you “can’t really talk back” to anything he says. JuJu is basically in “sponge mode” right now. His job right now is trying to soak up every bit of advice and coaching he can get while they’re just two practices into the spring.
Overall, JuJu sounds incredibly confident about where the offense is heading next season.
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