Julian Sayin was still in eighth grade when he received his first scholarship offer.

It happened shortly afterBryce Young, the top high school quarterback in the country in 2020, had just left Southern California to begin his career at Alabama, where he won a Heisman trophy and put himself in position to be the No. 1 pick in April.

“I never worked with Bryce, but I know when Julian was a little kid he had a firm eye on Bryce and the Elite 11 documentaries he was in,” said Jose Mohler, a Southern California-based quarterbacks coach who works with Sayin.

A five-star quarterback who ranks No. 10 overall in the Class of 2024 in the 247Sports Composite, Sayin never really took his eye off the 2021 Heisman winner. He studied everyCrimson Tide game from start to finish last season and committed to Alabama this past November. He is eager to become Alabama’s next great quarterback and is planning to enroll in January.

Sayin, though, still has to play his senior year at Carlsbad High School in Northern San Diego County, and his unofficial trip to Tuscaloosa next weekend is about preparing for when he finally is a student-athlete with the Crimson Tide.

“It’ll be our first trip back since he committed, but Bama extended this invitation to Julian’s high school coaches as well,” Julian’s father, Dan, said.

“They’re going to go learn from the Alabama coaches, and he’s going to watch practice for two days and spend three days with (new offensive coordinator) Tommy Rees and the quarterback room. They’ll be watching film and going through the workouts and what the QBs at Alabama do. Julian is excited about that. He did that at Georgia last year. Our coaching staff went out there, too. It’s nice for everybody involved.”

Alabama currently has four quarterbacks on scholarship —Jalen Milroe,Ty Simpson and 2023 signeesEli Holstein andDylan Lonergan. Consideringhow often elite quarterbacks transfer these days, odds are pretty good Sayin’s competition for playing time will look different by the time he’s at Alabama.

“Schools still reach out to me, but they know I’m pretty locked in with Alabama,” said Sayin, who picked Alabama over finalistsLSU andGeorgia and is still getting pushed byOhio State to make a return trip to Columbus for an official visit before signing with the Crimson Tide.  “I respond out of respect to the staff, my relationship with those people. … But the culture with Alabama, it’s something special. I want to be surrounded by elite talent and play at the highest level and play on the biggest stage, which is SEC football. Stepping into those 100,000-seat stadiums, hearing the crowd roar when you get hit and throw an over-the-shoulder touchdown pass, that’s what gets me excited.”

Locked in with Bama

Sayin is one of 27 quarterbacks in the 2024 cycle — including 16 of the top 30 in the 247Sports Composite — who have committed to a Power 5 program. He’s gone through a meticulous process of evaluating programs with his parents, visiting at least 15 schools, his father said, so he could get his college decision done quickly.

When he committed to Alabama in November, former Tide offensive coordinator Bill O’Brien made it no secret he’d leave for the right opportunity. It didn’t scare Sayin away. Neither does the fact head coach Nick Saban turns 72 on Halloween.

The change in coordinator didn’t faze Sayin either. Rees was recruiting him toNotre Dame, and the two first met when the Irish recruitedTyler Buchner from Southern California in the Class of 2021.

“Change is the nature of college football,” Dan Sayin said. “Coach Saban is 71. He doesn’t make any promises he’ll be there, but he has no plans to leave. If you know that’s what you want, (picking a college is) not a difficult decision.”

Brian Stumpf, the director of the Elite 11 camp, is looking forward to watching Sayin throw in person for the first time on March 26 when the 2024 Elite 11 regional series opens in Los Angeles.

On film, Stumpf sees similarities between Young and Sayin. He also sees some differences.

“They both win more with touch and precision than big howitzer power arms,” Stumpf said. “But Julian is much more of a pocket and on-time operator while Bryce has always been able to thrive in chaos and escape pressure at a high level.

“Julian isn’t a giant, but he’s 6-1 1/2 and probably pushing 190 pounds. Bryce is smaller. Where Bryce has him is he played against the highest level of competition his last two years at Mater Dei. Carlsbad was a solid team last year and played a few strong squads, but Julian isn’t battle-tested in pads with signature wins over IMG Academy or Don Bosco like Bryce had while he was in high school.”

Grooming QBs

Aidan Sayin, a college sophomore and starting quarterback at Penn who turns 20 on March 24, grew up playing catch with his younger brother at their older sisters’ soccer games.

“Julian was always that little brother trying to keep up, competing with a person older than him,” said Aidan, who went from sixth string to starting quarterback at Penn with five games to go in his freshman season in 2021.He led the Quakers to an 8-2 season this past fall — the program’s best record since it last won the Ivy League in 2010.

“We used to call him the backstop because he’d never really try to catch the ball,” Aidan continued. “He’d try to knock it down and then go get it basically because he thought I was throwing too hard at him. I think all that really helped his competitive nature.”

Dan Sayin, who played high school football and became an intercollegiate boxer at the University of Delaware, didn’t know he was going to raise two future college quarterbacks.

He likes to think it sort of happened organically after he signed them up for flag football in elementary school. But it’s hardly an accident considering he raised the boys throwing passes to jerseys hanging off PVC pipes in the yard. By the time Julian was 9, both boys were working with Mohler, a former quarterback at North Dakota State who played professionally in Europe.

Dan Sayin met his wife, Karen, when they were in college. They married and moved to Florida, where they lived for 18 years and were season ticket holders for Tampa Bay Buccaneers games from 1989 through 2004.

The family then moved to the San Diego area shortly before Julian was born. Dan sells vegetables and his wife used to run a bakery. She’s now the treasurer for Carlsbad’s football team and makes her son plant-based protein shakes. Julian has gained over 20 pounds since the end of his junior season drinking those shakes.

Mohler said Sayin’s arm strength is good for about 62 to 63 yards.

“I know he’ll say otherwise, but I still have a stronger arm,” Aidan Sayin said. “I can throw it 5 to 10 yards further than Julian can.”

Played our hearts out, left it all out on the field and#BeatPrinceton ‼️ 😤

Sights & Sounds from our thrilling 20-19 win at #22 Princeton yesterday to end the year. 📽️🔉#FightOnPenn x#BEGREATpic.twitter.com/3hfBWFBNIf

— Penn Football (@PENNfb)November 20, 2022

All business

Aidan Sayin wasn’t recruited as heavily as his younger brother, in part, because the COVID-19 pandemic wiped out his senior season.

He grew up dreaming of playing for Oregon, but his three scholarship offers came from Penn, Cornell and San Diego. His 1,490 SAT score helped. He wanted to study marine biology in college but is enrolled in the Wharton School for business. He led the Ivy League last season in completions and touchdown passes.

Dan Sayin said Julian will probably end up following his brother’s footsteps and study business in college.

“Julian is the kind of kid who sits down and watches “Old School” or “Little Man” with me while his brother will be in the other room watching a documentary about tree frogs,” Dan Sayin said. “Aidan’s intellectually curious. You don’t get that with Julian. You ask him, ‘What are you gonna major in?’ He’ll say, ‘I don’t know. Football?’”

Julian is 21-3 as a starting quarterback at Carlsbad. He completed 66.5 percent of his attempts for 2,708 yards, 27 touchdowns and only four interceptions last season. He also ran for 154 yards and three scores in leading his team to a 10-2 record, losing to eventual 1AA state champion San Diego Lincoln 28-24 in the playoffs.

The West Coast offense Sayin runs requires him to send receivers in motion, change plays at the line of scrimmage, change protections and play under center.

“A lot of stuff right now is air raid, throwing to wide open windows to where the timing mechanism of the feet isn’t nearly as important,” Mohler said. “You see a lot of guys out there just kind of jumping around, hopping around throwing the ball when receivers are open rather than being able to anticipate with the eyes and feet to be able to get the results. Something we continue to preach to our community is the standard of completion percentage. He knows what he’s doing with his eyes and feet. He knows how to be on time, how to attack a defense, where they’re weak.”

That’s the result, Mohler said, of intense film study.Julian Sayin has been breaking down film since he was 9, “watching corners, what they do, what their tells are, how they turn their feet, when they turn their jersey. He knows to look for those,” Dan Sayin said.

Julian has a tablet where he keeps notes of all the defensive coordinators and schemes he’s faced. When he trains with Mohler, Sayin often hooks up with former Denver Broncos backup quarterback Brett Rypien, who shares notes and helps mentor him.

Mohler also believes Sayin will thrive under the spotlight of playing for a demanding coach such as Saban.

“I think Julian is very attracted to being held accountable, and he thrives when other people become a little bit overwhelmed with those situations,” Mohler said. “So I was very excited to hear his response to why he committed to Alabama, which was he wants to be held accountable and be somewhere where it’s not gonna be given to him. His ultimate goal is to play at the highest levels possible. So I know he’s devising a plan in his head of how to get there, and Alabama was a big part of it.”

(Photo: Manny Navarro /The Athletic)