Buffs OC Lewis Brings Balance, Fast Pace To Colorado
February 23, 2023 | Football, Neill Woelk
BOULDER — New Colorado offensive coordinator Sean Lewis has a long and impressive list of teachers and mentors — from former Wisconsin coaches Barry Alvarez and Paul Chryst to current Syracuse boss Dino Babers.
Lewis, who gave up the head coaching spot at Kent State to join Deion "Coach Prime" Sanders' staff with the Buffaloes, has gleaned strategy and philosophy from every one of those mentors.
But after five years at Kent State — where he produced three winning campaigns and two bowl appearances — he has also developed his own style and approach.
It's not complicated. Know your players' abilities, play to their strengths, maintain a rapid tempo to keep defenses on their heels and produce a balanced attack.
The formula served him well with the Golden Flashes. Kent State annually ranked among the nation's top offenses during his tenure there, including a record-breaking 2021 season when KSU averaged nearly 500 yards offense per game — 248 on the ground and 246 in the air.
Now Lewis plans to bring that rapid-paced attack to Boulder, and he plans to fit his play calling to the available talent.
"I think at times we probably get a little bit too rigid as play callers in college and say, 'Hey, this is who we are. This is what we're going to be and this is how we go about it,' as opposed to knowing and assessing what you have and how you need to play it," Lewis said at a Thursday press conference. "It's about the players. They make plays."
Lewis already knows he has a quality quarterback at the ready in Shedeur Sanders. With Sanders at the helm, there's no doubt the Buffs will throw the ball.
But they won't, Lewis stressed, abandon the run game principles that have been a staple in every successful era of CU football.
"There's some (Wisconsin) Badger blood in me from where I played," Lewis said with a chuckle. "The years that we were at Kent State, in 2021 we were the number three rushing team in the country, only behind two service academies. So we're going to run the football when it comes to our offensive identity."
The 36-year-old Lewis is part of the new breed of offensive gurus who are not wedded to full Air Raid attacks or old-fashioned ground-and-pound approaches. He prefers balance — but there is a hint of old school in his philosophy.
No matter what, he insists, any offense has to own the trenches to be successful.
"We have to control what we can control," he said. "We have to own the line of scrimmage and we have to maximize our calculated shots. So we need to establish a ground game. Without that, you become too one dimensional and you need to be able to have a punch and counterpunch. We have to be able to throw it. We have to be able to run it."
Like every other coach in the business, Lewis is a student of the film room. But unlike many of his peers, he hasn't spent much time since his arrival in Boulder looking closely at the players he inherited — including his skill position players.
That approach, he said, is something he picked up from Babers in their stops at Eastern Illinois, Bowling Green and Syracuse.
"I haven't watched any tape because I don't know how they were coached a year ago," Lewis said. "I want everyone to have a clean slate. I think it's one of the best things that we all can get at times, is a fresh start and a clean slate. I want to be able to evaluate our guys based on what we're coaching them to do, and then how they're going to perform based on what we're asking them to do. Then we'll figure out how those pieces come together."
Lewis' quarterback room isn't exactly brimming with bodies.
Sanders, the presumed starter, accompanied his father when Coach Prime made the move from Jackson State. After that, the Buffs have sophomore returnee Drew Carter, who has thrown a grand total of 16 passes in his previous two seasons at CU, and two freshmen — scholarship signee Ryan Staub and redshirt walkon Colton Allen.
The situation means it is possible that the Buffs will add one more quarterback between now and fall camp.
"We'll get into the work to see what we have and I'll be able to evaluate it to know if there's any sort of movement we need to do with that," Lewis said. "I know all the guys in the room are doing a really good job. They're hungry to learn right now and there's only so much we can do this time of the year until we turn the page and get to spring ball. (But) I can tell that they're excited about what we're doing, the way that we're implementing it and eager to get to a 20-hour work week in spring ball and really dive into the real work."
Lewis didn't make the journey from Kent State alone. He brought with him veteran offensive line coach Bill O'Boyle, who was with Lewis all five seasons at Kent.
"The guys that make it go — you win the game up front in the trenches with the O-line and D-line," Lewis said. "I know everyone else gets the stats and everyone else gets the headlines. But if you don't keep those ball carriers clean, if you don't keep the quarterback upright, all the X's and O's don't matter whatsoever. It was critical to have him with me here on this journey."
Players Mentioned
