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The Sean Lewis Offense

Buffnik

Buffnik

Real name isn't Nik
Club Member
Junta Member
1236857726.0.jpg

Sean Lewis (Offensive Guru)

Today, this is the next progression of offense seen this year at Tennessee (Heupel offense pretty much a mirror of Lewis's).

This starts with Dino Babers and what he'd learned under Art Briles at Baylor, which was a total innovation to college football.

As a HS coach, Briles was having a lot of success running an old school split back veer. You can go back to Bill Yeoman's Houston offense he created in the 1960s and was an evolution of option football which delivered the best offense in the country and has been a mainstay of option football either as a play (or play tree) or an entire offense for decades.

Briles was seeing the Run n Shoot and Air Raid offense begin to dominate Texas football. Traditional programs were running spread passing attacks. It was leading to what we saw on the college level where teams were putting up a ton of points and winning more than they lost despite talent disadvantages in the trenches -- if you can get the ball out quickly to players in space, you can offset the fact that you can't physically dominate the other team's front 7.

So Briles took those spread passing attack concepts and integrated them with a single back veer running attack which made the QB the 2nd option to run the ball (or RPO where the QB could pull the ball and hit a WR after the defense had read run).

Here's a basic veer play out of single back - what most of us call a zone read. Basically, the OL crashes down and the OT to the play side gets to the 2nd level. This leaves the DE having to defend 2 guys to make a decision. And the wrinkle with RPO is that if a DB crashes then you can throw for a big play.
1670289372864.png
Notice how the QB is in shotgun instead of under center, mimicking the split back look of traditional veer. What you lose in the run game is the inside veer as part of the option. So you either run what you see above or you can option similarly to the inside with the RB running between the guards and the QB either trailing or planting to run outside. Also with RPO potential. (Not pictured is the 4th WR, so you have 2 slot receivers with 1 or both being TEs and 2 boundary receivers in whatever formation.)

Now, you stack on Air Raid concepts to that.
1670289895830.png
Defensive call hardly matters. There are route trees for every possibility and the offense can go fast because the adjustments happen on the fly with the QB and receivers needing to be able to read what's happening. All routes designed to put different defensive players to decisions and get the ball out quickly into space.

This is what Dino Babers learned under Art Briles. When he got the HC job at Eastern Illinois in 2012, he took over a team that had gone 2-9 (1-7) the year before. In 2 seasons, he went 7-5 (6-1) and 12-2 (8-0) the next 2 seasons before moving up to the HC job at Bowling Green in 2014 (taking over from Dave Clawson who had things going well there - and we've seen how good his offense is at Wake Forest). Babers went 8-6 (5-3) and 10-3 (7-1) there before landing the HC job at Syracuse in 2016.

That 2014 offense was 59th in scoring (30.0) and 44th in ypg (432.9). Then came 2015 - 6th in scoring (42.2) and 4th in yardage (546.8).

Lewis had been a position coach on the Eastern Illinois teams. It was his first full-time position coach job (WR/TE), with him being a GA at Akron the year before. Babers brought him to Bowling Green where he was the WR coach that first year and became OC/QB the second year when things took off. Because of that, Babers brought him to Syracuse to be his OC/QB coach in 2016 and 2017.

Syracuse's 2016 offense was only #90 in scoring (25.7) but was #42 in yardage (440.9). 2017 was the year that Syracuse upset #2 Clemson. They improved the 2017 offense to #75 scoring (26.7) and #23 in yardage (456.3). That led to Lewis getting hired as the HC at Kent State as the youngest HC in D1 at 32 years old at the time, one of the most under-resourced programs in the nation. The 5 seasons before he took over were 4-8, 2-9, 3-9, 3-9, 2-10. Definition of a bad job, honestly.

Lewis had played his college ball at Wisconsin and is familiar with the upper midwest. His evolution of the Briles/Baber offense was to integrate Big Ten style OL play to it. Even added power concepts with 2 backs (1 can motion out to slot or line up there without substituting).

Here are the summaries (note that with KSU being under-resourced, they play 3 body bag non-conference games a year - in 2022 that was at Georgia, Oklahoma & Washington):

2018 Offense: #105 scoring (20.6) and #83 yardage (383.7) running +21 more than he threw. 2-10 (1-7) record.
2019 Offense: #64 scoring (29.2) and #65 yardage (405.7) again running more (a lot more - +15) because he didn't have a QB who could throw. 7-6 (5-3) record.
2020 Offense: #1 scoring (49.8) and #1 yardage (612.5) running +18 more. 3-1 record. Covid year, so I'd discount a bit but also notable is he only had to play MAC teams.
2021 Offense: #30 scoring (33.0) and #5 yardage (494.6) running +17. 7-7 (6-2 record) - going to aTm, Iowa & Maryland doesn't help.
2022 Offense: #66 scoring (28.4) and #44 yardage (417.3) running +14 and with deficiency at QB (only 55% completion). 5-7 (4-4) record that put him on the hot seat (crazy profession).

So what we get here is an offense that goes fast, puts up tons of yardage, can score in bunches, and will take what the defense gives it. Whether it's zone, man, blitz heavy, or nickel/dime - that determines whether it's going to kill you in the air or on the ground. Skill set of QB determines the tendencies and it works whether it's more of a running QB or passing QB. But this offense does need the QB to be able to be an effective runner.

I've been salivating over the possibility of running this Sean Lewis offense at altitude. Explosiveness that we saw with Briles' teams modified to be able to grind you down with Big Ten sized OLs. It's the perfect system for entertaining football that can also wear defenses down to close out games (a negative of pure Air Raid).

I could go on, but I've typed enough. Watch the damn video and then you'll probably need to smoke a cigarette.
 
Last edited:
Buffnik said:
1236857726.0.jpg

Sean Lewis (Offensive Guru)

This starts with Dino Babers and what he'd learned under Art Briles at Baylor, which was a total innovation to college football.

As a HS coach, Briles was having a lot of success running an old school split back veer. You can go back to Bill Yeoman's Houston offense he created in the 1960s and was an evolution of option football which delivered the best offense in the country and has been a mainstay of option football either as a play (or play tree) or an entire offense for decades.

Briles was seeing the Run n Shoot and Air Raid offense begin to dominate Texas football. Traditional programs were running spread passing attacks. It was leading to what we saw on the college level where teams were putting up a ton of points and winning more than they lost despite talent disadvantages in the trenches -- if you can get the ball out quickly to players in space, you can offset the fact that you can't physically dominate the other team's front 7.

So Briles took those spread passing attack concepts and integrated them with a single back veer running attack which made the QB the 2nd option to run the ball (or RPO where the QB could pull the ball and hit a WR after the defense had read run).

Here's a basic veer play out of single back - what most of us call a zone read. Basically, the OL crashes down and the OT to the play side gets to the 2nd level. This leaves the DE having to defend 2 guys to make a decision. And the wrinkle with RPO is that if a DB crashes then you can throw for a big play.
View attachment 56554
Notice how the QB is in shotgun instead of under center, mimicking the split back look of traditional veer. What you lose in the run game is the inside veer as part of the option. So you either run what you see above or you can option similarly to the inside with the RB running between the guards and the QB either trailing or planting to run outside. Also with RPO potential. (Not pictured is the 4th WR, so you have 2 slot receivers with 1 or both being TEs and 2 boundary receivers in whatever formation.)

Now, you stack on Air Raid concepts to that.
View attachment 56555
Defensive call hardly matters. There are route trees for every possibility and the offense can go fast because the adjustments happen on the fly with the QB and receivers needing to be able to read what's happening. All routes designed to put different defensive players to decisions and get the ball out quickly into space.

This is what Dino Babers learned under Art Briles. When he got the HC job at Eastern Illinois in 2012, he took over a team that had gone 2-9 (1-7) the year before. In 2 seasons, he went 7-5 (6-1) and 12-2 (8-0) the next 2 seasons before moving up to the HC job at Bowling Green in 2014 (taking over from Dave Clawson who had things going well there - and we've seen how good his offense is at Wake Forest). Babers went 8-6 (5-3) and 10-3 (7-1) there before landing the HC job at Syracuse in 2016.

That 2014 offense was 59th in scoring (30.0) and 44th in ypg (432.9). Then came 2015 - 6th in scoring (42.2) and 4th in yardage (546.8).

Lewis had been a position coach on the Eastern Illinois teams. It was his first full-time position coach job (WR/TE), with him being a GA at Akron the year before. Babers brought him to Bowling Green where he was the WR coach that first year and became OC/QB the second year when things took off. Because of that, Babers brought him to Syracuse to be his OC/QB coach in 2016 and 2017.

Syracuse's 2016 offense was only #90 in scoring (25.7) but was #42 in yardage (440.9). 2017 was the year that Syracuse upset #2 Clemson. They improved the 2017 offense to #75 scoring (26.7) and #23 in yardage (456.3). That led to Lewis getting hired as the HC at Kent State as the youngest HC in D1 at 32 years old at the time, one of the most under-resourced programs in the nation. The 5 seasons before he took over were 4-8, 2-9, 3-9, 3-9, 2-10. Definition of a bad job, honestly.

Lewis had played his college ball at Wisconsin and is familiar with the upper midwest. His evolution of the Briles/Baber offense was to integrate Big Ten style OL play to it. Even added power concepts with 2 backs (1 can motion out to slot or line up there without substituting).

Here are the summaries (note that with KSU being under-resources, they play 3 body bag non-conference games a year - in 2022 that was at Georgia, Oklahoma & Washington):

2018 Offense: #105 scoring (20.6) and #83 yardage (383.7) running +21 more than he threw. 2-10 (1-7) record.
2019 Offense: #64 scoring (29.2) and #65 yardage (405.7) again running more (a lot more - +15) because he didn't have a QB who could throw. 7-6 (5-3) record.
2020 Offense: #1 scoring (49.8) and #1 yardage (612.5) running +18 more. 3-1 record. Covid year, so I'd discount a bit but also notable is he only had to play MAC teams.
2021 Offense: #30 scoring (33.0) and #5 yardage (494.6) running +17. 7-7 (6-2 record) - going to aTm, Iowa & Maryland doesn't help.
2022 Offense: #66 scoring (28.4) and #44 yardage (417.3) running +14 and with deficiency at QB (only 55% completion). 5-7 (4-4) record that put him on the hot seat (crazy profession).

So what we get here is an offense that goes fast, puts up tons of yardage, can score in bunches, and will take what the defense gives it. Whether it's zone, man, blitz heavy, or nickel/dime - that determines whether it's going to kill you in the air or on the ground. Skill set of QB determines the tendencies and it works whether it's more of a running QB or passing QB. But this offense does need the QB to be able to be an effective runner.

I've been salivating over the possibility of running this Sean Lewis offense at altitude. Explosiveness that we saw with Briles' teams modified to be able to grind you down with Big Ten sized OLs. It's the perfect system for entertaining football that can also wear defenses down to close out games (a negative of pure Air Raid).

I could go on, but I've typed enough. Watch the damn video and then you'll probably need to smoke a cigarette.
Click to expand...

Nice job Nik. Thank you
 
Buffnik said:
1236857726.0.jpg

Sean Lewis (Offensive Guru)

This starts with Dino Babers and what he'd learned under Art Briles at Baylor, which was a total innovation to college football.

As a HS coach, Briles was having a lot of success running an old school split back veer. You can go back to Bill Yeoman's Houston offense he created in the 1960s and was an evolution of option football which delivered the best offense in the country and has been a mainstay of option football either as a play (or play tree) or an entire offense for decades.

Briles was seeing the Run n Shoot and Air Raid offense begin to dominate Texas football. Traditional programs were running spread passing attacks. It was leading to what we saw on the college level where teams were putting up a ton of points and winning more than they lost despite talent disadvantages in the trenches -- if you can get the ball out quickly to players in space, you can offset the fact that you can't physically dominate the other team's front 7.

So Briles took those spread passing attack concepts and integrated them with a single back veer running attack which made the QB the 2nd option to run the ball (or RPO where the QB could pull the ball and hit a WR after the defense had read run).

Here's a basic veer play out of single back - what most of us call a zone read. Basically, the OL crashes down and the OT to the play side gets to the 2nd level. This leaves the DE having to defend 2 guys to make a decision. And the wrinkle with RPO is that if a DB crashes then you can throw for a big play.
View attachment 56554
Notice how the QB is in shotgun instead of under center, mimicking the split back look of traditional veer. What you lose in the run game is the inside veer as part of the option. So you either run what you see above or you can option similarly to the inside with the RB running between the guards and the QB either trailing or planting to run outside. Also with RPO potential. (Not pictured is the 4th WR, so you have 2 slot receivers with 1 or both being TEs and 2 boundary receivers in whatever formation.)

Now, you stack on Air Raid concepts to that.
View attachment 56555
Defensive call hardly matters. There are route trees for every possibility and the offense can go fast because the adjustments happen on the fly with the QB and receivers needing to be able to read what's happening. All routes designed to put different defensive players to decisions and get the ball out quickly into space.

This is what Dino Babers learned under Art Briles. When he got the HC job at Eastern Illinois in 2012, he took over a team that had gone 2-9 (1-7) the year before. In 2 seasons, he went 7-5 (6-1) and 12-2 (8-0) the next 2 seasons before moving up to the HC job at Bowling Green in 2014 (taking over from Dave Clawson who had things going well there - and we've seen how good his offense is at Wake Forest). Babers went 8-6 (5-3) and 10-3 (7-1) there before landing the HC job at Syracuse in 2016.

That 2014 offense was 59th in scoring (30.0) and 44th in ypg (432.9). Then came 2015 - 6th in scoring (42.2) and 4th in yardage (546.8).

Lewis had been a position coach on the Eastern Illinois teams. It was his first full-time position coach job (WR/TE), with him being a GA at Akron the year before. Babers brought him to Bowling Green where he was the WR coach that first year and became OC/QB the second year when things took off. Because of that, Babers brought him to Syracuse to be his OC/QB coach in 2016 and 2017.

Syracuse's 2016 offense was only #90 in scoring (25.7) but was #42 in yardage (440.9). 2017 was the year that Syracuse upset #2 Clemson. They improved the 2017 offense to #75 scoring (26.7) and #23 in yardage (456.3). That led to Lewis getting hired as the HC at Kent State as the youngest HC in D1 at 32 years old at the time, one of the most under-resourced programs in the nation. The 5 seasons before he took over were 4-8, 2-9, 3-9, 3-9, 2-10. Definition of a bad job, honestly.

Lewis had played his college ball at Wisconsin and is familiar with the upper midwest. His evolution of the Briles/Baber offense was to integrate Big Ten style OL play to it. Even added power concepts with 2 backs (1 can motion out to slot or line up there without substituting).

Here are the summaries (note that with KSU being under-resources, they play 3 body bag non-conference games a year - in 2022 that was at Georgia, Oklahoma & Washington):

2018 Offense: #105 scoring (20.6) and #83 yardage (383.7) running +21 more than he threw. 2-10 (1-7) record.
2019 Offense: #64 scoring (29.2) and #65 yardage (405.7) again running more (a lot more - +15) because he didn't have a QB who could throw. 7-6 (5-3) record.
2020 Offense: #1 scoring (49.8) and #1 yardage (612.5) running +18 more. 3-1 record. Covid year, so I'd discount a bit but also notable is he only had to play MAC teams.
2021 Offense: #30 scoring (33.0) and #5 yardage (494.6) running +17. 7-7 (6-2 record) - going to aTm, Iowa & Maryland doesn't help.
2022 Offense: #66 scoring (28.4) and #44 yardage (417.3) running +14 and with deficiency at QB (only 55% completion). 5-7 (4-4) record that put him on the hot seat (crazy profession).

So what we get here is an offense that goes fast, puts up tons of yardage, can score in bunches, and will take what the defense gives it. Whether it's zone, man, blitz heavy, or nickel/dime - that determines whether it's going to kill you in the air or on the ground. Skill set of QB determines the tendencies and it works whether it's more of a running QB or passing QB. But this offense does need the QB to be able to be an effective runner.

I've been salivating over the possibility of running this Sean Lewis offense at altitude. Explosiveness that we saw with Briles' teams modified to be able to grind you down with Big Ten sized OLs. It's the perfect system for entertaining football that can also wear defenses down to close out games (a negative of pure Air Raid).

I could go on, but I've typed enough. Watch the damn video and then you'll probably need to smoke a cigarette.
Click to expand...

So, you like it?
 
Buffnik said:
1236857726.0.jpg

Sean Lewis (Offensive Guru)

This starts with Dino Babers and what he'd learned under Art Briles at Baylor, which was a total innovation to college football.

As a HS coach, Briles was having a lot of success running an old school split back veer. You can go back to Bill Yeoman's Houston offense he created in the 1960s and was an evolution of option football which delivered the best offense in the country and has been a mainstay of option football either as a play (or play tree) or an entire offense for decades.

Briles was seeing the Run n Shoot and Air Raid offense begin to dominate Texas football. Traditional programs were running spread passing attacks. It was leading to what we saw on the college level where teams were putting up a ton of points and winning more than they lost despite talent disadvantages in the trenches -- if you can get the ball out quickly to players in space, you can offset the fact that you can't physically dominate the other team's front 7.

So Briles took those spread passing attack concepts and integrated them with a single back veer running attack which made the QB the 2nd option to run the ball (or RPO where the QB could pull the ball and hit a WR after the defense had read run).

Here's a basic veer play out of single back - what most of us call a zone read. Basically, the OL crashes down and the OT to the play side gets to the 2nd level. This leaves the DE having to defend 2 guys to make a decision. And the wrinkle with RPO is that if a DB crashes then you can throw for a big play.
View attachment 56554
Notice how the QB is in shotgun instead of under center, mimicking the split back look of traditional veer. What you lose in the run game is the inside veer as part of the option. So you either run what you see above or you can option similarly to the inside with the RB running between the guards and the QB either trailing or planting to run outside. Also with RPO potential. (Not pictured is the 4th WR, so you have 2 slot receivers with 1 or both being TEs and 2 boundary receivers in whatever formation.)

Now, you stack on Air Raid concepts to that.
View attachment 56555
Defensive call hardly matters. There are route trees for every possibility and the offense can go fast because the adjustments happen on the fly with the QB and receivers needing to be able to read what's happening. All routes designed to put different defensive players to decisions and get the ball out quickly into space.

This is what Dino Babers learned under Art Briles. When he got the HC job at Eastern Illinois in 2012, he took over a team that had gone 2-9 (1-7) the year before. In 2 seasons, he went 7-5 (6-1) and 12-2 (8-0) the next 2 seasons before moving up to the HC job at Bowling Green in 2014 (taking over from Dave Clawson who had things going well there - and we've seen how good his offense is at Wake Forest). Babers went 8-6 (5-3) and 10-3 (7-1) there before landing the HC job at Syracuse in 2016.

That 2014 offense was 59th in scoring (30.0) and 44th in ypg (432.9). Then came 2015 - 6th in scoring (42.2) and 4th in yardage (546.8).

Lewis had been a position coach on the Eastern Illinois teams. It was his first full-time position coach job (WR/TE), with him being a GA at Akron the year before. Babers brought him to Bowling Green where he was the WR coach that first year and became OC/QB the second year when things took off. Because of that, Babers brought him to Syracuse to be his OC/QB coach in 2016 and 2017.

Syracuse's 2016 offense was only #90 in scoring (25.7) but was #42 in yardage (440.9). 2017 was the year that Syracuse upset #2 Clemson. They improved the 2017 offense to #75 scoring (26.7) and #23 in yardage (456.3). That led to Lewis getting hired as the HC at Kent State as the youngest HC in D1 at 32 years old at the time, one of the most under-resourced programs in the nation. The 5 seasons before he took over were 4-8, 2-9, 3-9, 3-9, 2-10. Definition of a bad job, honestly.

Lewis had played his college ball at Wisconsin and is familiar with the upper midwest. His evolution of the Briles/Baber offense was to integrate Big Ten style OL play to it. Even added power concepts with 2 backs (1 can motion out to slot or line up there without substituting).

Here are the summaries (note that with KSU being under-resources, they play 3 body bag non-conference games a year - in 2022 that was at Georgia, Oklahoma & Washington):

2018 Offense: #105 scoring (20.6) and #83 yardage (383.7) running +21 more than he threw. 2-10 (1-7) record.
2019 Offense: #64 scoring (29.2) and #65 yardage (405.7) again running more (a lot more - +15) because he didn't have a QB who could throw. 7-6 (5-3) record.
2020 Offense: #1 scoring (49.8) and #1 yardage (612.5) running +18 more. 3-1 record. Covid year, so I'd discount a bit but also notable is he only had to play MAC teams.
2021 Offense: #30 scoring (33.0) and #5 yardage (494.6) running +17. 7-7 (6-2 record) - going to aTm, Iowa & Maryland doesn't help.
2022 Offense: #66 scoring (28.4) and #44 yardage (417.3) running +14 and with deficiency at QB (only 55% completion). 5-7 (4-4) record that put him on the hot seat (crazy profession).

So what we get here is an offense that goes fast, puts up tons of yardage, can score in bunches, and will take what the defense gives it. Whether it's zone, man, blitz heavy, or nickel/dime - that determines whether it's going to kill you in the air or on the ground. Skill set of QB determines the tendencies and it works whether it's more of a running QB or passing QB. But this offense does need the QB to be able to be an effective runner.

I've been salivating over the possibility of running this Sean Lewis offense at altitude. Explosiveness that we saw with Briles' teams modified to be able to grind you down with Big Ten sized OLs. It's the perfect system for entertaining football that can also wear defenses down to close out games (a negative of pure Air Raid).

I could go on, but I've typed enough. Watch the damn video and then you'll probably need to smoke a cigarette.
Click to expand...

So much words
 
I only watched the JSU game against Southern but do we think Shedeur can be effective enough running the ball against bigger, P5 defenses? I was very impressed with his accuracy throwing the ball, and his decision making, but he doesn’t necessarily look like he’s built to take a beating.
 
I have some concerns about what happens when you have to slow things down and run the 4 minute offense. But otherwise I don't think you could come up the better overall design for an offense at altitude.
 
I know this is your guy Nic, sorry if already posted, as the Kent St head coach does/did he call the plays?
 
Buffnik said:
1236857726.0.jpg

Sean Lewis (Offensive Guru)

This starts with Dino Babers and what he'd learned under Art Briles at Baylor, which was a total innovation to college football.

As a HS coach, Briles was having a lot of success running an old school split back veer. You can go back to Bill Yeoman's Houston offense he created in the 1960s and was an evolution of option football which delivered the best offense in the country and has been a mainstay of option football either as a play (or play tree) or an entire offense for decades.

Briles was seeing the Run n Shoot and Air Raid offense begin to dominate Texas football. Traditional programs were running spread passing attacks. It was leading to what we saw on the college level where teams were putting up a ton of points and winning more than they lost despite talent disadvantages in the trenches -- if you can get the ball out quickly to players in space, you can offset the fact that you can't physically dominate the other team's front 7.

So Briles took those spread passing attack concepts and integrated them with a single back veer running attack which made the QB the 2nd option to run the ball (or RPO where the QB could pull the ball and hit a WR after the defense had read run).

Here's a basic veer play out of single back - what most of us call a zone read. Basically, the OL crashes down and the OT to the play side gets to the 2nd level. This leaves the DE having to defend 2 guys to make a decision. And the wrinkle with RPO is that if a DB crashes then you can throw for a big play.
View attachment 56554
Notice how the QB is in shotgun instead of under center, mimicking the split back look of traditional veer. What you lose in the run game is the inside veer as part of the option. So you either run what you see above or you can option similarly to the inside with the RB running between the guards and the QB either trailing or planting to run outside. Also with RPO potential. (Not pictured is the 4th WR, so you have 2 slot receivers with 1 or both being TEs and 2 boundary receivers in whatever formation.)

Now, you stack on Air Raid concepts to that.
View attachment 56555
Defensive call hardly matters. There are route trees for every possibility and the offense can go fast because the adjustments happen on the fly with the QB and receivers needing to be able to read what's happening. All routes designed to put different defensive players to decisions and get the ball out quickly into space.

This is what Dino Babers learned under Art Briles. When he got the HC job at Eastern Illinois in 2012, he took over a team that had gone 2-9 (1-7) the year before. In 2 seasons, he went 7-5 (6-1) and 12-2 (8-0) the next 2 seasons before moving up to the HC job at Bowling Green in 2014 (taking over from Dave Clawson who had things going well there - and we've seen how good his offense is at Wake Forest). Babers went 8-6 (5-3) and 10-3 (7-1) there before landing the HC job at Syracuse in 2016.

That 2014 offense was 59th in scoring (30.0) and 44th in ypg (432.9). Then came 2015 - 6th in scoring (42.2) and 4th in yardage (546.8).

Lewis had been a position coach on the Eastern Illinois teams. It was his first full-time position coach job (WR/TE), with him being a GA at Akron the year before. Babers brought him to Bowling Green where he was the WR coach that first year and became OC/QB the second year when things took off. Because of that, Babers brought him to Syracuse to be his OC/QB coach in 2016 and 2017.

Syracuse's 2016 offense was only #90 in scoring (25.7) but was #42 in yardage (440.9). 2017 was the year that Syracuse upset #2 Clemson. They improved the 2017 offense to #75 scoring (26.7) and #23 in yardage (456.3). That led to Lewis getting hired as the HC at Kent State as the youngest HC in D1 at 32 years old at the time, one of the most under-resourced programs in the nation. The 5 seasons before he took over were 4-8, 2-9, 3-9, 3-9, 2-10. Definition of a bad job, honestly.

Lewis had played his college ball at Wisconsin and is familiar with the upper midwest. His evolution of the Briles/Baber offense was to integrate Big Ten style OL play to it. Even added power concepts with 2 backs (1 can motion out to slot or line up there without substituting).

Here are the summaries (note that with KSU being under-resources, they play 3 body bag non-conference games a year - in 2022 that was at Georgia, Oklahoma & Washington):

2018 Offense: #105 scoring (20.6) and #83 yardage (383.7) running +21 more than he threw. 2-10 (1-7) record.
2019 Offense: #64 scoring (29.2) and #65 yardage (405.7) again running more (a lot more - +15) because he didn't have a QB who could throw. 7-6 (5-3) record.
2020 Offense: #1 scoring (49.8) and #1 yardage (612.5) running +18 more. 3-1 record. Covid year, so I'd discount a bit but also notable is he only had to play MAC teams.
2021 Offense: #30 scoring (33.0) and #5 yardage (494.6) running +17. 7-7 (6-2 record) - going to aTm, Iowa & Maryland doesn't help.
2022 Offense: #66 scoring (28.4) and #44 yardage (417.3) running +14 and with deficiency at QB (only 55% completion). 5-7 (4-4) record that put him on the hot seat (crazy profession).

So what we get here is an offense that goes fast, puts up tons of yardage, can score in bunches, and will take what the defense gives it. Whether it's zone, man, blitz heavy, or nickel/dime - that determines whether it's going to kill you in the air or on the ground. Skill set of QB determines the tendencies and it works whether it's more of a running QB or passing QB. But this offense does need the QB to be able to be an effective runner.

I've been salivating over the possibility of running this Sean Lewis offense at altitude. Explosiveness that we saw with Briles' teams modified to be able to grind you down with Big Ten sized OLs. It's the perfect system for entertaining football that can also wear defenses down to close out games (a negative of pure Air Raid).

I could go on, but I've typed enough. Watch the damn video and then you'll probably need to smoke a cigarette.
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I didn't watch the entire video. Just the first few minutes. Would surprise me if we do something like that with Shedeur.
 
Hank said:
I didn't watch the entire video. Just the first few minutes. Would surprise me if we do something like that with Shedeur.
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First part is on the run game with a focus on the QB keeps. It can adjust based on QB. Tennessee, for example, only ran Hooker about 100 times over 11 games this year.
 
Buffnik said:
First part is on the run game with a focus on the QB keeps. It can adjust based on QB. Tennessee, for example, only ran Hooker about 100 times over 11 games this year.
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Only?? ~9 carries a game for a QB when Tennessee ran 74 plays per game on average seems like a significant chunk.
 
Bread said:
Only?? ~9 carries a game for a QB when Tennessee ran 74 plays per game on average seems like a significant chunk.
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Shedeur had about 7 carries a game this year. (Also, sacks count as running plays in college so that's in there.)
 
SpacemanSpiff said:
I only watched the JSU game against Southern but do we think Shedeur can be effective enough running the ball against bigger, P5 defenses? I was very impressed with his accuracy throwing the ball, and his decision making, but he doesn’t necessarily look like he’s built to take a beating.
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Shedeur is a pocket QB. You want him in the pocket. Not on the run. He has some mobility but you definitely want him in the pocket
 
So some of the offenses I see that use this offense, including the Dolphins seem to use smaller but quick receivers rather than bigger receivers. Is that right?
 
Pbuffdiddy said:
So some of the offenses I see that use this offense, including the Dolphins seem to use smaller but quick receivers rather than bigger receivers. Is that right?
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You need guys who can win 1-on-1s. So it's a bit of both being able to dust someone in space but also being able to out-fight a defender for a deep ball. In general, though, yes. You're going to favor a guy who can do something with an open field which the scheme & execution create over someone who can box guys out to make a catch in traffic.
 
Defenses are starting to finally catch up to this a little bit by mixing some 3-3-5 schemes with some old school option prinicples (I won't get into that, but will if requested). What I like about this core scheme is that you get the best of both worlds between modern spread principles and old option football....which are successful for two reasons 1) quick decisions causing missed assignments by the Defense, and 2) poor/missed tackles in space. You can run it at a super fast pace, which makes the prevalence of missed tackles/assignments increase substantially. This goes without saying, but this is superior to traditional option football in todays CFB because also also allows you to mix in a bunch of fun wrinkles out of pistol, air raid, pro sets etc...because this offense has the personnel that a traditional option team doesn't.
 
Leon Sandcastle said:
Defenses are starting to finally catch up to this a little bit by mixing some 3-3-5 schemes with some old school option prinicples (I won't get into that, but will if requested). What I like about this core scheme is that you get the best of both worlds between modern spread principles and old option football....which are successful for two reasons 1) quick decisions causing missed assignments by the Defense, and 2) poor/missed tackles in space. You can run it at a super fast pace, which makes the prevalence of missed tackles/assignments increase substantially. This goes without saying, but this is superior to traditional option football in todays CFB because also also allows you to mix in a bunch of fun wrinkles out of pistol, air raid, pro sets etc...because this offense has the personnel that a traditional option team doesn't.
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I will always love me some option. I grew up on Hagen pitches to Flannegan and Bienemy. I love that a modern offense can be deadly with elements of the option. (I know we've been doing some RPO... but it has never looked very optiony--or effective.)
 
GawainBuff said:
I will always love me some option. I grew up on Hagen pitches to Flannegan and Bienemy. I love that a modern offense can be deadly with elements of the option. (I know we've been doing some RPO... but it has never looked very optiony--or effective.)
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You have to have 2 things to make this offense work, and one more to make it deadly. You have to have a good decision maker that can deliver a ball on time at QB, and you have to have guys that can be dangerous in space. CU has neither of these. The third thing is an offensive line that can run the ball at will; if edge and second level players on defense have to react to run first on every play...they are properly furked
 
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