Sean Lewis left behind a head coaching role at Kent State to become an offensive coordinator and play caller for Deion Sanders at Colorado. As first reported by Action Network's Brett McMurphy, Lewis will not have sole responsibility of those duties this weekend against Oregon State.
Instead, Sanders will turn to longtime NFL coach and current CU quality control analyst Pat Shurmur to call plays and work alongside Lewis in the hopes of remedying the Buffs' problems on the offensive side of the ball.
According to Yahoo! Sports reporter Ross Dellenger, Shurmur and Lewis will be named co-offensive coordinators for the Buffs as soon as Sanders decides which assistant coach will be reassigned to allow for CU to remain within the NCAA rules for allowable on-field coaches.
McMurphy's original report said that Shurmur will take over the play-calling duties while Lewis will send in the signals for the Buffs' offense.
In his previous role, Shurmur has been limited in what he can do because of those NCAA restrictions on analysts, but the move be Sanders will give the former Denver Broncos offensive coordinator a much bigger influence over the on-field decisions.
Shurmur has been an offensive coordinator for several teams throughout his career including with the Broncos (2020-21), Minnesota Vikings (2017), Philadelphia Eagles (2013-15) and St. Louis Rams (2009-10).
Prior to arriving in Boulder, Shurmur had prior experience at the collegiate level having began his career as a graduate assistant at Michigan State before stepping into several roles over the next several seasons as an assistant coach with the Spartans.
He served as Stanford's offensive line coach for one season before beginning a long tenure in the NFL starting in 1999.
“It’s what I remember college to be,” Shurmur said about CU’s offense when meeting with the media in August to discuss his analyst role. “There’s a lot of uptempo stuff. In the NFL, I'd sit in the press box and just call the plays in, so there wasn't a barrier as far as communicating. Here it's all signaled in. It’s a tempo-style offense, a lot of the plays are very familiar. In a former life, what I might have called apple, [Lewis] calls orange."
Shurmur said in August that "it's really hard to be out there and bite your tongue when you see something," but his previous role as an analyst limited him to going through assistant coaches for any message to reach players.
Now he can have more direct input and build on what Lewis has built so far this season on the offensive side of the ball.
A change such as the one Sanders is making at this point in the season doesn't come unprompted. The Buffs allowed seven more sacks last week in a loss to UCLA, and the running game has not been effective for most of the season. Those two issues pushed Sanders to make some kind of move to provide a spark offensively with CU having lost four of its last five games.
"Overall, we just don't have the fight or the passion to do what we want to do," the CU head coach said in reference to the offensive line after the 28-16 loss to the Bruins. "I'm a little biased because I'm his father, but I think we have the best quarterback in the country. I don't think any other quarterback could put up with standing and delivering like ours do, week in and week out, and take the beating that he's taking.
"We gotta address that. We gotta address that scheme-wise, we gotta address that functionally ... we just gotta do a better job, we really do."
Colorado currently sits at No. 6 overall in passing offense among 130 eligible FBS teams, however, the lack of an effective running game has certainly hindered the progress Lewis and the offense have been able to make up to this point in the season.
The Buffs currently rank 128th in rushing offense with an average of just 78.6 yards on the ground per game this year.
"It's a struggle to run the ball," Sanders said. "We gotta figure that out, because now you're one dimensional, and it's easy to stop a team when they are one dimensional. And, that's who we are at this point in time."
The Buffs host No. 16 Oregon State at 8 p.m. Saturday night at Folsom Field.
