the article is pretty interesting. It's why you have to be careful about writing off Sanders. He has some good coaches working for him. (There were lots of still aerial shots of formations and 3-4 videos but I had to delete these because the image limit was crossed with them)
Can Deion Sanders’ Colorado offense under Sean Lewis get up to speed by Week 1?
By
Mike Kuchar
May 16, 2023
35
While the rest of the college football world is anticipating a possible disaster at Colorado, offensive line coach Bill O’Boyle didn’t sound concerned while talking with me from his rented home near campus.
He wasn’t pounding the pavement of every local high school or hopping from plane to plane, desperately scrambling to make up for the
more than 50 players who have departed
Colorado’s roster since Deion Sanders took over. Instead, he was fielding phone calls — and not from this year’s incoming class. He’s already looking at recruits for the 2025 cycle.
“We’ll be fine. We got enough kids on our list right now,” he said. “We might come down to the wire on a couple of guys this summer, but the way it’s been going right now I’m not worried. The media conveniently doesn’t bring it up, but we’ve placed a lot of guys already. And those players are a lot better than what we’ve had.”
His perspective offers a stark contradiction from the feelings of much of the college football world, including the assumption that Colorado doesn’t have a prayer at filling an 85-man roster by the time camp rolls around in August. And even if the Buffaloes get the roster filled, there is no way they will be able to install a new offense with 10 new receivers, given an eight-hour work week in summer months (the max coaches can spend with their players), right?
“I get it. Everybody wants to see us fall on our faces. No doubt,” O’Boyle said. “We’re getting pounded by all the other schools asking players, ‘Why are you going to Colorado? They are not established, etc.’ We know we have five million eyes on us, so we are not going to do anything out of line. But at the end of the day, when you play with that chip on your shoulder, you are a different cat. And those are the cats we want. We are going to get this thing done right.”
It’s clear that Sanders has imposed his personality on the rest of the staff in Boulder.
“He made it clear that we will do whatever it took to get better,” O’Boyle said. “He said it from the first staff meeting to our last meeting in spring ball right before the spring game. If he says something is going to happen, it usually happens. He’s that kind of guy. Coach Prime gave those kids a chance up through spring ball up until the last day to make it. Then the real decisions were made.”
As for why those decisions occurred so late? O’Boyle said there was no other way.
“The personnel was so bad here by the time we even got in pads, we knew some kids weren’t going to be with us post-spring,” he said. “We had to do what we did. And that’s why people don’t get it. I don’t how people ride our asses about it. We didn’t have a choice. I run into guys on the road that played us and tell us the same thing. Anybody that knows Colorado football knows this had to be done. And it’s a shame we had to get to this point, but we didn’t have a choice.”
O’Boyle has been here before. He was one of the first hires by Colorado offensive coordinator Sean Lewis when Lewis took over as head coach at Kent State in 2017. He recalls his first spring practice when the Golden Flash suited up
three offensive linemen. It was so brutal that the new O-line coach had to step in and play right tackle during most of the drills.
Lewis did transform the program at Kent State, turning the Golden Flash into one of the nation’s most productive offenses. In 2021, they set numerous program records and the rushing offense ranked third in the FBS at 248.8 yards per game.
“To see (Lewis) and what we did there and people didn’t take a chance and go after him is beyond me,” O’Boyle said. “Anybody that knows ball and knows what happened there — it pisses me off that he didn’t get a bigger opportunity.”
Sanders was so enamored with the pace of play of Lewis’ system that he reached out to Oklahoma co-defensive coordinator Todd Bates to inquire about him.
Kent State played
Oklahoma last September and gave the Sooners all they could handle, trailing 7-3 in the first half before OU pulled away. Sanders pursued Lewis, and Colorado was willing to pay the $750,000 buyout to bring him to Boulder. O’Boyle followed to coach the Colorado line.
And while Sanders is in a race to fill the roster before preseason camp, Lewis will be engulfed in a race of his own to find a measure of offensive efficiency by Week 1 vs.
TCU. Lewis has proven that if anyone can do it, he can. His system is fast, including his teaching methodology. The entire system gets installed in four days.
“By Day 4, we’re already game-planning for our opponent,” O’Boyle said. “It’s all in place.”
Let’s look at the three cornerstones of the Lewis system and the challenges the Colorado offensive staff will have in installing them in such a short period of time amid substantial roster turnover.
Tempo
Kent State ran one of the fastest-paced offenses in college football under Lewis, ranking third in fewest seconds per snap (22.4) over the past four seasons, per TruMedia. He’ll bring that fast tempo and motion to Colorado. And speed was an emphasis this spring in Boulder. In fact, in the spring game alone there was a separate period just for 7-on-7 drill work just so that Lewis could work on streamlining his communication process with skill players.
O’Boyle says the upside of playing with tempo is it limits the number of concepts you can run.
“We have to be as simple and as precise as we can be,” he said. “Everything we run has to fit what we can see defensively. We don’t have time to make three checks up front. Everything is built in.”
RPOs
One of these built-in mainstays is the run-pass option (RPO) system.
When Lewis took over at Kent State in 2017, one of his first hires was offensive coordinator Andrew Sowder. Sowder, now the tight ends coach at Minnesota, and Lewis installed a lethal RPO system with the ability to read every defender on the field. It became the cornerstone of their offense. Last year, the Golden Flashes ranked first in the FBS in RPO frequency, according to Pro Football Focus, with more than 50 percent of their plays attached to an RPO.
They had pre-snap RPOs, where quarterbacks would identify leverage of the secondary and throw quick screens off the run game. In the image below against
Toledo, the corner is more than 5 yards off, so the quarterback throws a quick smoke screen.
They had triple-option RPOs, where quarterbacks read both first-level defenders in the zone read and then progress to secondary reads on bubble screens. In the image below against Oklahoma, the defensive end closes, forcing the quarterback to pull and throw the bubble concept.
They had tight end bubble RPOs, where the quarterback still reads a first-level defender for run/pass, then dishes the ball out to the tight end on the bubble so both receivers can block. In the image below against
Eastern Michigan, the defensive end closes, giving the tight end access to the perimeter.
Then they brought the tight end across the formation in the same concept, mixing it with inside zone action. In the image below, the safeties get crossed up on the run fit, again allowing the tight end access to the perimeter.
They had post-snap RPOs like the five-step glance concept, which manipulated boundary safeties by presenting run action right in his face. Below, Kent State catches Oklahoma rotating to the field and rips off an explosive play on the RPO element.
They had glance switch RPOs, where both inside receivers switch responsibilities. These manipulate man coverages, providing rub routes for receivers to access space.
They had opposite side mesh RPOs where the run action is shown away from the defender being manipulated. This is a complete tendency breaker for defenses because the back is
not aligned to the side of the RPO. Here, the ball gets zinged in front of the boundary safety for a quick strike.
Heck, they even had delayed RPOs that take advantage of slower trigger defenders. In the video below, they get the alley defender to bite on the bubble, throwing the glance behind him.
With an RPO catalog this extensive, the challenge will be placed not only on these receiver newcomers, but also on quarterback
Shedeur Sanders to master his reads. Most of Jackson State’s pass game with Shedeur Sanders featured boot concepts, allowing him to change launch points and throw on the run. In fact, only 19 percent of Jackson State’s passing game was pure RPOs, and even those lacked the sophistication of the Lewis/Sowder manipulations.
But it’s clear that Lewis has started with baby steps, gradually infusing the RPO system. This spring, Sanders and the quarterbacks were given more pre-snap relief throws, where they were permitted to throw the outlet if the run wasn’t there. Below is a pre-snap bubble to the boundary with no cover-down defender.
Sanders completed a pre-snap quick slant RPO in the red zone later in the scrimmage. This was, again, a pre-snap indicator to throw because of the down safety.
But it was evident that receivers were still working through the route tech on these glance RPOs. In the video below, the receiver shaves his route too soon and the corner is able to close and make the tackle for only a 2-yard gain.
QB run game
The last tell of a Lewis system is the prevalence of the quarterback run game, something he’s relied on since the 2018 season. With such a reliance on the passing game at Jackson State, the run game stumbled into the lower half of the FCS.
Lewis understood the deficiency when he got the job, which is probably why he brought O’Boyle with him to Boulder. They were architects of a downhill, aggressive run game that finished in the top five twice while the duo was at Kent State. And despite this spring looking like a glorified passing league, O’Boyle testifies they will be bringing a physical run game with him, something that is lacking in much of the Pac-12.
“We had to develop more strength than anything,” O’Boyle said. “We had an ass-kicking schedule at Kent State (
the Flash played at Washington, at Oklahoma and at Georgia in the first half of the season) and we have to develop that toughness here. I’m not sure anyone’s even lifted weights in this program before.”
The Buffs will rely on the gap schemes (power and counter) that made Kent State’s run game productive. This includes running the quarterback, which is something Kent State did in 2022 with
Collin Schlee (492 yards) and 2021 with
Dustin Crum (703 yards), who are both 6 feet 3. While he’s a shade under 6-3, the 215-pound Sanders may have the girth to run these gap schemes. It will be a significant transition from Jackson State, where Sanders registered 85 rushing attempts last season and all but four of them were scrambles. His only designed runs were five QB sneaks.
O’Boyle was non-committal on whether or not the head coach’s son will get significant designed runs, but there was no uncertainty about his skill set.
“The kid is different,” he said. “He can flat run. I know (Lewis) is not going to change our system, so he will be a threat every time he has the ball. Shedeur can outrun anybody. We can build a package around him and be versatile, but we’re not going to get away from what we are known for.”
Having coached in the run-heavy Missouri Valley Football Conference,
O’Boyle is an innovator in gap scheme play. For Lewis, who played under Wisconsin legend Barry Alvarez and Bret Bielema from 2004-07, gap schemes are engrained in his acumen. Power read was a staple at Kent State and Lewis relied on it heavily in the red zone.
Kent State was able to spread defenses in 10 personnel groupings to open up downhill lanes. It was mixed with jet motion, which we’d expect Lewis to continue with the speed Colorado has on the perimeter.
G/T (guard and tackle) counter was also a foundation in Kent State’s package. The double-pull play gave another look to the defense. And the offensive staff at Kent State meshed it with fast motion from the back and jet motion from the slot. In the opener against
Washington last season, Schlee sold the jet sweep to open up the counter element, and the fake generated a lot of misdirection from the Huskies’ second level.
And in the video below from later in the season against Eastern Michigan, Schlee meshes with the back for the misdirection component. Again, it’s the same result.
The quarterback run catalog from Kent State did feature some perimeter run concepts, such as zone reads that may better suit Sanders’ skill set. These were built-in reads for Schlee, who would read C gap defenders.
These were combined with double lead principles — most commonly called zone bluff — where both the Y and jet motion receiver would block for the quarterback on the keep.
Finally, the zone read triple was another way to get Schlee on the perimeter. These were run/pass options to either keep the ball or pitch it on the bubble. In the clip below against Washington, the field safety closes on the bubble, allowing Schlee to keep the ball.
Conclusion
Lewis’s offensive system is extensive and he’s up against it when it comes to getting it all communicated by the time preseason camp commences. But it’s clear this is a staff that believes they can get it all turned around before the opener against TCU on Sept. 2.
Colorado's massive roster turnover will require the rapid installation of a new offense. Sean Lewis could be just the coach for the job.
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