Colorado's Sean Lewis risked leaving a head coaching job to lead Buffs' offense, and it's already paying off

Colorado Athletics

There comes a point at which every Mid-American Conference head coach must face a moment of scheduling truth.

"A one sheeter," former Kent State athletic director Joel Nielsen recalled of the document he slid across the table to his new coach in late 2017.

On it was everything Sean Lewis needed to know as he pursued the Golden Flashes' job -- salary, facilities, budget and schedule. Except it wasn't so much a schedule, it was more a sentence.

In the next five seasons -- if Lewis lasted that long -- Kent State would play literally a season's worth of nonconference road games (12) against Power Five school, some of them giants: Penn State, Auburn, Wisconsin, Texas A&M, Iowa, Washington, Oklahoma, Georgia.

Lewis took the Kent State job at age 31 making him the FBS's youngest -- and perhaps bravest -- coach.

All MAC schools typically play those guarantee games, but Kent State had chosen an especially difficult road.

Those nonconference games individually paid Kent State athletics anywhere from $500,000 to $1.0 million. The quid pro quo is decades old. The giants need easy wins. Kent State covers 20% of its athletic budget by becoming a sacrificial lamb three times per season.

In that sense, the likes of Kent State play football to be able to continue playing football.

When that moment of scheduling truth arrived, Lewis was all in. It paid off. Today, he is arguably the hottest assistant in the country as Colorado's wizard offensive coordinator.

"The MAC is built to be 1-3 to start the season. If you ever get to 3-1, you've kind of lit it up," said Kansas general manager Rob Ianello, the man who gave Lewis his first FBS opportunity as Akron coach in 2011. "... The schedule Kent was playing, they weren't just playing up, they were playing way up. It was challenging."

Lewis left Kent State for Colorado in the offseason having gone 24-31 as a first-time coach. He went 0-12 in those body bag games with Kent State outscored by an average of almost four touchdowns per contest. By all accounts, Deion Sanders didn't know Sean Lewis from Meriweather Lewis. But he quickly learned about him because almost everybody in the profession knew about Sean Lewis.

The coach had unlocked some sort of offensive lightning wherever he'd been, making the entire program better.

"To be able to do that within the Mid-American Conference with the type of recruits that we have [is one thing]. … Imagine what his offensive mindset would be with the 'Louies,' as Coach Prime said," recalled Casey Cegeles, the former deputy AD at Kent State who helped hire Lewis.

"They're going to have a swagger about them because they know what they do works. We're going to light up that scoreboard, light those fireworks off," Lewis said this offseason.

Lewis has chosen not to speak with the media this week following Colorado's rousing 45-42 season-opening win over TCU. We would love for him to explain how he fought his way out of that thick underbrush at Kent State to become Colorado's offensive coordinator. The man who is one of the toasts of the profession heading into Week 2 has instead chosen a low profile.

It is a profile he was familiar with in the MAC but one he can no longer maintain. Lewis has already become a fascinating cog in Deion Sanders' CU experience.

The Buffaloes strafed the Horned Frogs, scoring the most points on TCU at their home in five years. Quarterback Shedeur Sanders (school-record 510 yards passing) became an early Heisman Trophy candidate. Travis Hunter (100+ yards receiving in 147 total plays also seeing the start at cornerback) became a wonder.

For now, the task is left to others to explain how Lewis got to this point.

"Maybe just enjoy the Power Five life again," Cegeles said of Lewis' exodus, "and not have to grind and make ends meet whenever you can. And get to show what you can do on a national stage with a guy -- love him or hate him -- you're going to listen to Prime talk."

Actually, it was more of an inflection point for Lewis in his career. Nielsen was desperate when he fired Paul Haynes in 2017 after a 14-45 run over five seasons. Only four coaches in program history ended with winning records at the school. Nick Saban's alma mater deserved better.

Sean Lewis took a risk giving up a head coaching job at Kent State. Getty Images

Nielsen interviewed a dozen candidates, including a 28-year-old Garrett Riley, then Kansas' quarterbacks coach. Lewis made an impression bringing a thick binder to his interview that detailed everything from recruiting to scheme to assistant coach hires. Two seasons later, Lewis coached the Flashes to their first bowl victory. Kent State won a MAC division title for only the second time ever in 2021.

Nielsen recalled Lewis once landing a recruit by playing PlayStation with the kid for two hours.

"He's got a lot of confidence in himself and that system. I don't know if that's called betting on yourself or not. I think this is that next step, just to get to that level [to say], 'Hey, I've done it,'" Nielsen said.

Lewis left an FBS head coaching job where he had thrived, despite the schedule. Balance that against agreeing to call plays for an 1-11 program, arguably the worst in the Power Five at the end of the 2022 season.

There was a bump in pay, sure, but there was something more organically football.

"Sometimes, you have a certain window in MAC jobs," said veteran coach Dino Babers, who hired Lewis at Eastern Illinois, Bowling Green and Syracuse. "You have to get in and you have to get out. If you feel like your window has passed you by, I guess you have to make a change. I would hate to see Sean Lewis not be a head coach again."

That might be some long-term fallout from Colorado's earth-shaking Week 1 accomplishment. For better or worse, Lewis has bet on himself and hitched his career -- for better or worse -- to Coach Prime.

Right now, it's the best thing he could have done, but that's getting ahead of a fascinating story. Lewis is known far and wide as an accomplished play caller. And coaches know budding talents below the radar whether they're in the MAC or the SEC.

For Lewis, it has been a mix of tempo and spread that is common these days. At first glance, Shedeur Sanders throwing a mixture of short passes and deep shots looked a bit like Bill Walsh's West Coast offense. But Lewis' offense at CU makes a heavy bow to Art Briles.

The disgraced former Baylor coach nevertheless has a playbook that endures as a football bible. Babers, entering his eighth season as Syracuse's coach, learned it as Baylor offensive assistant from 2008-11. It dawned on more than a few Saturday that Lewis was across the field from Briles' son, Kendall, TCU's offensive coordinator. That's how prevalent and effective the elder Briles' offense remains.

Babers taught the scheme to Lewis after hiring him as an assistant at Eastern Illinois in 2012. Then he brought him along to coordinate offenses at Bowling Green and 'Cuse. Lewis -- a 6-foot-7 former Wisconsin tight end -- then brought the accumulated knowledge to Kent State where they called the scheme "Flash Fast."

Under Babers at Bowling Green, Lewis took the Falcons' offense from fifth in the MAC the previous year to fourth in the nation in 2015. Syracuse went from 13th in ACC total offense in 2015 (the year before Lewis arrived) to sixth to third, adding an average of 137 yards per game in his two seasons.

"Dino was very upfront," Nielsen said. "The reason they won so many games at Bowling Green [and Syracuse] and got so many plays snapped, 'That's Sean Lewis.'"

The year before Lewis arrived at Kent State, the Flashes had the third-worst offense in the country averaging a pitiful 275 yards. Two years later, they were averaging more than 400 yards per game.

In the COVID-19-shortened 2020 season, Kent State -- playing only four games -- led the country in scoring and total yards. It wasn't a fluke. People noticed.

"When you're operating this offense," Lewis said before the season, "it's like you're riding a bike down a volcano."

The lava has just begun to flow. "Flash Fast" has turned into "Folsom Fast." (Folsom Field is Colorado's home.) CU welcomes Nebraska this week sitting sixth nationally in plays per game (85). Kent State finished in the top 13 in plays per game each year but one during Lewis' stay.

"This is all from Coach Babers," Lewis previously said. "Some of the schematics come from all over. I wouldn't be standing in front of you guys if not for him. Think fast, go fast, do fast. I'm a competitive alpha dude. I'm going to win in everything I do."

The face of that scheme on Saturday was Shedeur Sanders. Colorado's quarterback became an instant Heisman contender throwing four touchdown passes. Suddenly, CU's prospects have to be reevaluated. The Nebraska matchup becomes one of the national games of the week. A 3-0 start looks likely. A bowl game is a definite possibility.

"I think he was interested if this would work at a level like Colorado and against some of the better defenses out there," Nielsen said. "He's got some players over there now, too. I think that drove him as much as anything."

Still, not everyone would give up a head coaching job -- even in the MAC -- for a coordinator's job at a place that had gone through six head coaches this century. When Deion Sanders was hired, he was CU's fourth coach in slightly more than four years.

There have been two winning seasons at Colorado since 2002. The program had lost its way in recruiting. When Shedeur Sanders broke that single-game passing mark, he surpassed the immortal Tyler Hansen (474 yards), who set that mark in 2011 while playing for a team that went 3-10 that season.

This is different. CU has a future, not just video-game numbers.

Is the nation overreacting? Hype works is funny that way. It's still Colorado, a nonfactor all this years. If Lewis has some hidden offensive secrets, well, there are scores of schools who have defended the spread. Now, CU's opponents have film to study.

Lewis has already proven he doesn't care.

"If you're going to gamble on somebody," Babers said of his prodigy, "gamble on yourself."