A small sea of ink has been spent detailing the talent overhaul that Deion Sanders is overseeing and describing all the elite recruits that the CU Buffs have recently landed, but not enough focus has been spent on new offensive coordinator Sean Lewis — undeniably one of Coach Prime’s biggest recruiting wins this offseason.
Now, Lewis isn’t a high school prospect, but he was a successful and established head coach of Kent State, a D-1 program with considerably more recent success than Colorado. In fact, he was so successful with the Golden Flashes that, prior to accepting the job in Boulder, he had emerged as one of the top head coach candidates for Cincinnati — arguably the best non-Power-5 program in college football.
Getting him to leave that HC job, to take a step back for the lowly CU Buffs, is a borderline miracle.
In a recent article discussing the top assistants in college football, ESPN’s Adam Rittenberg highlighted Sean Lewis as one of the sport’s 13 most impressive offensive coordinators.
“Lewis likely won’t need much time at Colorado — as long as he’s successful — to generate interest for higher-profile FBS head jobs,” Rittenberg wrote. “Lewis is only 36 but brings coveted experience leading a program — at one of the nation’s toughest jobs — and expertise running an exciting offensive scheme. The Chicago area native has worked mostly in the Midwest and Northeast but now expands his footprint to Colorado, which will have extra eyeballs on it as the Deion Sanders era begins.”
While working as the head coach for Kent State, Lewis oversaw an offense that averaged over 415 yards and 28 points per game, in 2022. He operates a high-paced super-spread attack, but unlike many of his contemporaries, Lewis has also consistently boasted a steady ground attack. This past season, Kent State was one of just 24 programs to average more than 200 yards per game on the ground.
Lewis attributes that tendency to his background as a player for the University of Wisconsin — a team that notoriously leans into some smashmouth elements.
“I’ve got Badger blood in me from where I played,” Lewis said. “In the years that we were at Kent State, in 2021 we were the No. 3 rushing team in the country only behind two service academies. We’re going to run the football when it comes to our offensive identity. We got to control what we can control, we got to own the line of scrimmage and we have to maximize our calculated shots. We need to establish the ground game. Without that, you become too one-dimensional.”
With a solid number of quality backs already on the roster, he should be able to concoct a pretty exciting rushing attack.
Lewis has an incredible resume, and will now have more talent to work with than he’s ever had as an offensive play-caller. The results should be tantalizing.
