How does a University of Wisconsin grad from Illinois, who spent a huge chunk of his coaching life in Ohio, end up looking like the next big thing coach at a place like San Diego State?
And how does he do it by going against what made him a hot name in the first place?
Lewis didn’t do much as a tight end for the Badgers, but he quickly grew into a rising star coach with an offensive style that went fast, fast, fast.
At just 31, he took over a woeful Kent State program and turned it into a winner with a bowl victory in 2019. His offense went 1000 miles per hour, made everyone adjust, and it was what Deion Sanders wanted at Colorado.
Lewis was in Boulder for just one season, left to become the head coach at San Diego State, and the results weren’t great in a 3-9 season. Last year, though, his offense was okay, but the defense was one of the best in the nation.
Now, at 40, he’s one more great season away from getting a long look from the big programs. Here’s our interview with the Aztec head coach going into the 2026 season.
– 2026 San Diego State Preview
CFN: How outside of the box is San Diego State football-wise compared to Wisconsin, Kent State, and everywhere else you’ve been?
Sean Lewis: It was certainly different.
Yeah, I mean, it’s funny. The first year, you think it’s going to be wildly different and probably try to be more West Coast than Midwest in some ways, and then you realize that, no, we all do the same thing. Like, these guys just need discipline, some structure, and be good to go.
You, the FlashFast-turned-AztecFast offensive coach – where did that defense come from last year? (The Aztecs finished sixth in the nation in scoring defense and 11th in total defense, but those numbers are a bit skewed with almost all of its stars gone before the wild bowl loss to North Texas.)
It’s San Diego, you think, groovy and surfers, but Rocky Long had some amazing defenses in his era. And there’s what (Brian) Dutcher does with the hoops side – they’re at a whole other level. This is a hard-nosed place. I think that’s what we are; it’s something we learned, and it’s kind of this double-edged sword.
You can recruit anywhere because of how amazing this place is. But you better make sure the person you’re bringing in is wired the right way so that they’re not distracted by the temptations. And so having a hard-nosed, focused individual is really important to us.
Having great discipline, being a physical team, and doing hard things in the offseason the way that we do does have a balance. This past Friday we went to the beach – we always do the things San Diego has to offer to balance out the hard stuff, but I think how we go about it to do things in a way that’s uniquely special.
And then the individuals that we get to rub shoulders with are also very unique. So, yeah, it’s a special place.
At the time, it was easy to see exactly why you were the hire. New stadium, new developments, new plan to make this San Diego’s football team – SDSU needed someone with a high-powered offense to bring the fans in. And then, last year, you turned into the 2000 Baltimore Ravens. As a coach, how did you pivot that fast?
It was the timing, and we kept working on it. The Colorado State game (it was a 45-24 SDSU win), where it was all the things that we knew we’re capable of being. It was kind of right on schedule with all the other places that I’ve been fortunate to be a part of flipping.
So it was kind of that sweet spot of Year Two, Game Four, Game Five – that is where things hit the road for the offense and our style of play, and guys truly understood how we had to try to win games.
We had back-to-back weeks there of Colorado State and Nevada (a 44-10 SDSU win), where we’re lighting the scoreboard up and doing all the things. And then, unfortunately, in subsequent weeks, we lost our top two wide receivers.
So, okay, we’ll have enough humility to take your ego out of it. It has nothing to do with ego or personal styles, and has everything to do with being loyal to the team and winning and doing what’s best for the program.
And the way that we ultimately played it was the way that we did. That was for the betterment of the team, so we could position ourselves to win. Because that’s the ultimate goal to put ourselves in those spots.
But you’d probably rather go 100 miles per hour, right?
I want to win, but yeah, for sure. You have to adapt, and I think what everyone’s learning in this current environment is that, yeah, you have your program pillars and you have your ways of how you want to do it. And obviously we’re recruiting to that talent and everything for a certain brand and style of play, and we’re going to get back to our ethos of playing fast, but each year is its own beast in and of itself.
When this offensive style works, and the other side can’t hit the fastball, forget it – but there’s obviously that flip side. How do you do what you want on offense – (Lane) Kiffin had that issue last year in the Georgia loss – knowing your defense will probably be gassed in the fourth quarter?
Yeah, yeah. I mean, like, we all have our styles, right? And we all have our way that we want to go about it, but at the end of the day, you’ve got to know, okay, what does the situation dictate? And I think that’s where I’ve evolved as a head coach over the years, like early on at Kent State. I was calling it like an offensive coordinator, just trying to outscore everyone …
Well, seriously, Kent State … you’ve got to do something different.
Sure. Absolutely. Right? But it’s like, yeah, you get to a point where you realize, okay, hey, the opponent’s not on the other boundary anymore. Like, the opponents, the clock, and we’re in a position that, if you know how to manage the situations properly, and you’ve educated the program well enough to know that this is how we win, you adjust.
And that’s where, again, we’ve got a great staff, and we have great leadership that within our team, I can early in the week say, “all right, look, like, this is the opponent that we’re playing.
Here’s how they play, here’s their culture, here’s how they win, and here’s how we’re gonna counteract that, and here’s how we’re gonna play this week in all three phases.”
And we have tremendous buy-in to where guys know, okay, if the coaches are pointed in this direction, this is how we’re going to be successful, and I think that’s our job as a staff.
Every week and every year is, okay, as we build the team or as we build the plan each week, how do we win? That’s the ultimate goal. And then, what role does each coach, each player, each phase of the game need to play in that plan to go win that week?
As long as we keep winning, you know, again, are there style points to it to sell tickets? Sure, absolutely. There’s a reason I went to the call center to get on the phone and to do all those things, and do all things that we need to do, but ultimately, let’s just win.
You obviously never want to see a college kid get injured or anything like that, but your defense kept knocking quarterbacks out of the game at some point. That seemed like a pretty good way to win.
Yeah, of course – our defense could really attack and make things happen. It was always something – it was either a new quarterback or a new playcaller. We got really good at managing chaos and the unknowns.
Is the idea that with your offense, you don’t want to screw up because you know the defense will shine, or maybe you can take more chances because the defense will clean up the messes …
But the one thing that we always want to be – we actually talked about as a staff this morning – is that we want to be disciplined and default to being aggressive in all three phases no matter what.
I can go for it on fourth down and midfield because I know that our defense has our back, or, hey, push the ball vertically down the field offensively, because we know that we can take shots and we’re hunting explosive plays.
Or maybe it’s a fake punt, or it’s a swinging gate play, knowing that we’re going to score more later or the defense is going to do such a great job suffocating the opponent that we’re playing.
But, yeah, in all three phases, we want to have our kids feeling confident to play fast, to play aggressively, and to be dictating more than reacting in all phases of the game.
Not to keep hammering on this – am I reading anything into the Wisconsin background, like how it was done under Barry Alvarez going ground and pound?
We want to have our scheme be multiple, and we teach it in a way that, again, week to week or whatever plays out, whatever we’re going to have to deal with, the football game has final down upon us.
The first half of the season, we had all of our pieces. The back half of the season, we lost some really key pieces, so having a scheme be diverse enough and simple enough to be able to get to it in different ways. And then again, as a staff and as players and as a program, to be humble enough to realize, okay, let’s take a look in the mirror.
Whatever our strengths right now, how do we play and recruit to win, knowing that when we win, everyone will be in a better position?
Whether that’s individual NIL for the guys, or collectively as coaches and new opportunities. When you looked at the bowl game, again, when you lost everybody, I mean, you’re down to the fourth string, you’ve lost all the defensive guys, you throw the best option out there.
All of a sudden, it’s like, okay, let’s wheelhouse the offensive style. It was a fun shootout, but I thought it was really indicative of the culture that we’ve created and the health of the program that through change and adversity, we are always going to be there, and we can’t boo-hoo about it.
It has to be about “What can we do? Who can play?” Like, “So what? Now what?” Let’s go put the ball down and let’s go get it on.
Not to kiss up, but the way your team kept fighting in the bowl (a 49-47 loss to North Texas in the New Mexico Bowl) despite all the injuries and missing so much talent – that felt, like, “that’s the coaching.”
That’s the style of the program. Yeah, I would like to think we have some influence on that, but I think it was also probably, more importantly, the players believing that no matter who it is, let’s go fight, let’s go compete, and turn it into whatever it needs to be to go have some success.
But there are few opportunities that our guys get to go play; now we get to coach. That makes this game so unique and so special. So it’s okay, we’re playing in the New Mexico Bowl. That’s awesome. Let’s go play. At no point in time was it like, “Oh, boo-hoo.” No, we need to go play.
We could go play, they get to go, we get to go coach, boys get to go play, and let’s GO. Let’s go mix it up, right? And I think if you just love competing and playing the way that the people in our building do, why would you turn down that opportunity? Like, so what if we lost so many players? Go play.
© Darren Yamashita-Imagn Images
In your world, does being the Pac-12 resonate? You’re still playing a lot of the same teams, but that’s going to be the thing for the national profile. Do recruits even know what the Pac-12 is?
Yeah, but they’re young kids. On a national level, what’s the value? I don’t know. In this office, when we get to talk about moving to the Pac-12, the impact that it has for our program is huge. The parents, guardians, coaches, and former players perk up, and then the players perk up, as well.
That matters. That’s real. It’s gotten us some conversations and commitments that I don’t believe we would have been in or received if we weren’t able to talk about being in the Pac-12 Conference.
Does that change the recruiting focus of the Washington and Oregon area as well? Or is it really more focused on trying to own Southern California?
Yeah, I mean, the priority is always going to be about recruiting at home. It was one of the things looking at the roster when I first got the gig. We were going to hammer on Southern California and do a great job there. But the Pac-12 has allowed us to tap into the Pacific Northwest, and that was kind of always part of the three-to-five year plan.
Reestablish a strong foundation back in Southern California, and there’s such an influx in population in Phoenix, and so many who come over to San Diego for vacation. So there’s a familiarity with that as well.
But now, expanding our reach to the Pacific Northwest, where historically, we’ve got some really good players out of as a program, and tapping into Texas, because of the addition of Texas State and the reach of the conference.
We’ve probably seen more of an impact there, as well, with some of our coaching staff, their connections to those regions in Houston and DFW and Austin and everything. So it’s allowed us to get in living rooms, even though I haven’t been in a living room for, you know, two years now, given the rules and everything. But yeah, it’s allowed us to have some great, great conversations.
Seriously, who doesn’t take a recruiting trip to San Diego?
Paradise. I mean, like our close rate is over 85%, unofficially. So we’ve got to do a great job vetting out who we bring here because, yeah, this place shows off now. I mean, it’s the reason why it’s America’s favorite city.
And it has become more national, with San Diego State having such a bigger national profile. Have you seen this at all in recruiting?
Yeah, and I think this generation that we’re recruiting right now gets it. Their world is so much more connected than ours ever was, right? I was always thinking about things regionally when I was coming out of high school, whereas I think the generation now just has such more of a global vision of things.
They’re able to be informed through technology. We were able to develop a pretty personal relationship, and people are really motivated to come check us out. So how do you notice, recruiting-wise, if there’s a difference from Midwest city to Southern California? Is there a difference? Not really, I mean, people are still people, right?
You gotta figure out the heart of it. I don’t see fewer options, but if you want to stay local from around here, what do you do? If you’re not at a USC level, then yeah, this is very, very different than being from Chicago. You’ve got a ton of options around there.
The eight years I spent in Ohio – sure, it’s the MAC – but there’s Cincinnati, and a whole bunch of other schools. You start with a three- to four-hour radius of drive time, and you could touch a lot of schools in the Midwest, whereas, in Southern California, there just aren’t a slew of opportunities.
There are fewer options, but again, our prospects out here are more used to travel. And so now, if I need to get on a plane to jet somewhere, they get it. What’s most important for you and the family, and how can we provide value and create a path and opportunity for you to have success – that’s what it’s all about.
How much does taking the team outside of the time zone really matter? The Hawaii trip (38-6 Hawaii) – how much did the travel matter? The Northern Illinois game (6-3 SDSU) was just weird.
Yeah, I think it has to, right? I think it just shows in all facets. Like, you had better be flexible, and if you’re too rigid in your ways, eventually it’s gonna catch up to you, and you’re gonna get broken off in some form or fashion.
So like, again, just learning through our first years here, you kind of don’t know what you don’t know, and I had to learn pretty quickly about how to handle the distance.
We traveled to Central Michigan that first year, and then all the primetime games and late-night travel coming back, and then, how does that influence and impact when your off day is so that your team can be refreshed and recharged?
So just being able to zoom out, really evaluate how you’re doing things, and if we get into a jam, you have to just play your game. I want to play that thing as late as possible. So yeah, I try to find the competitive advantage with all of it. I think we’re all trying to do that in some form or fashion.
No way to be nice about it, but you guys got hammered in the transfer portal on defense, so what specifically were you looking to do for this year’s team as a response? I mean, you can’t just replace the stars of last year and assume you’ll find another NFL-caliber guy to step in.
Experience matters, especially when you’re losing pieces that have the depth, experience, and production of an Owen Chambliss (Nebraska), Dwayne McDougle (Nebraska), or Trey White (Texas Tech).
Ryan Henderson, who was a quality player for us, goes to Texas A&M – so even though you try to find experience to replace the experience, you’re probably not getting apples for apples there.
You’re not finding another (Miami Dolphin first-round cornerback pick) Chris Johnson. So then it goes to, okay, well, what are the position-specific traits we can look for at each of those spots?
Where’s the height, weight, speed, and measurables that we want to get close to what you had? Then you evaluate the game tape, and you see where deficiencies are. Are those deficiencies adequate enough where you know your scheme intimately, or can we protect those deficiencies versus the other deficiencies that we can’t?
Like, for our wide receivers, they’ve got to be able to run, run, with what we do. You might have stiffer hips, and that’s okay, and we can protect and find other positives. That’s alright.
What’s the national recruiting pitch? “Hey, you just spent the last several years in snow and cold – have you seen San Diego State?” You bring them out here, and it’s 74 and sunny every day. There’s got to be a little bit of San Diego discount, right?
That’s local, too. For Californians in particular, this fits into what they might be used to as they’re coming out of high school. They might feel like they wanted to get away and experience something different, and they did. But then they realized that home is pretty awesome, right?
So then they’re willing to get a discount to come closer to home. Tano Letuli is a great example of that. He goes all the way across the country to Army and realizes it wasn’t exactly what he was looking for. Going from West Point to here. A little bit of a difference … absolutely.
He takes those experiences, and we’re better because of it. He’s a tremendous leader. But you can’t buy the experience our kids have in particular, we’ve really felt it, we’ve really seen it in the cost of retention.
That matters in the cost of talent acquisition to how guys know how they’re being developed, how they’re being poured into, the resources that we have here, and, you know, we’re able to keep guys for a competitive rate.
It’s not necessarily about matching other offers, but the whole experience of being here in the building, and the part they have and what they’ve built, and how our staff serves them; everyone is able to stay and capitalize on that opportunity.
Besides the defensive front, is it the offensive line that needs the most work?
Yeah, we need to retool a bit. I mean, we’ve got a few there with Joe Borjon and Kalan Ellis that are coming back, so three out of the five will be brand new.
But again, I think we’ve done a nice job of having some pieces that have been developing, that have been cultivating players who have been within the program, and then obviously going out and getting the parts, like the twins from Michigan State (Charlton and Mercer Luniewski), Evan Lawrence from Indiana, and Matt Montgomery from Western Illinois, to be able to supplement and have.
Again, we want and have a robust depth of talent in that room. And then we can go have a competitive spring and figure out who the best five up front are who play well together. And then we try to do that across all position rooms, in all position groups, and continue to push that competitive nature.
What do you need to do to win this season?
As boring as it is, just blocking and tackling. So much production of tackles left the building. The roster turnover is there, so we have to replace tackles with more tackles. We block and tackle well, and we’ll win.
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