Nebraska football offers juco defensive lineman Taylor Lewis | football

Taylor Lewis had been talking to Nebraska coaches a week, maybe two, when he got the word Thursday: NU had a scholarship offer for him.

“Honestly, I can say I was pretty shocked,” said the 6-foot-3, 295-pound junior college defensive tackle. “They told me straight up: They’re looking for somebody to come in and make plays.”

And so, just before Nebraska is set to host a key defensive line transfer from Alabama, it extended a scholarship offer to one of the top remaining junior college defensive linemen still available for the 2022 recruiting class.

Lewis, who played last season at College of the Canyons in Santa Clarita, California, announced his offer on social media. Lewis had 18 tackles and 1.5 tackles for loss last season. College of the Canyons, like many jucos, did not play games in the 2020-2021 COVID year.

Lewis announced offers from Missouri, Oregon State and Louisiana Tech in recent days. He originally hails from Chicago’s Kenwood Academy, the same school that produced incoming Husker defensive back Jalil Martin. Lewis said NU coaches had been talking to Kenwood’s coaches for more than a month about Lewis, but those coaches had only reached directly out to Lewis recently. Lewis said he didn’t know Martin well, but did know current NU receiver Alante Brown, who was once a star quarterback in the Chicago area.

“We had a hard time stopping him,” Lewis said.

NU coaches prefer to add one more defensive tackle to the 2022 roster, whether it’s Wynn — who has one year left — Lewis or another prospect. Two former Husker defensive linemen, Casey Rogers and Jordon Riley, followed former NU defensive line coach Tony Tuioti to Oregon in recent months.

Lewis said he’ll take “a lot of visits” over the next two weeks and commit by the end of May.

“Nebraska is right there near the top,” he said.