4-5, on track for 4-7 in the regular season.
Now
Career arc
Bowls and playoffs: 1-2
2019Frisco BowlW 51-41
2021Famous Idaho Potato BowlL 38-52
San Diego State
2025New Mexico BowlL 47-49
This week Wed Nov 4
- Last gameW 26-20 vs. Washington State Sat Oct 31
- This season4-5
- Hot seat20% 20th of 132
- On track for4-7 regular season
- Nextvs. Utah State Sat Nov 14 (no game this week)
- Stature80th of 138 FBS programs
What the result changed
- Playoff odds <0.1% → 0.1% CFB Zeitgeist forecast, before and after
Win and he’s at 16%. Lose and he’s at 23%.
No game this week · vs. Utah State, Sat Nov 14, 9:30 pm ET 
· Utah State is 3-5 · Lewis vs. Bronco Mendenhall: 0-1 · San Diego State’s chance to win: 35% (the site’s model)
- If San Diego State wins: 16%, 26th of 132
- Now: 20%
- If San Diego State loses: 23%, 18th of 132
Is he getting fired?
20% chance he’s out after the season · 20th of 132 FBS head coaches · Hot
If he finishes…
Bar: how likely that finish isNumber: his chance of being out
- 4-823%
- 5-716%
- 6-610%
Why his number is where it is
Our hot-seat model, on his record so far, the win chances for every game he has left, and his contract (a bigger buyout, relative to pay, makes a change costlier). Ranked against the 132 FBS head coaches with 3+ games this season.
Both of his finished seasons here ended Cool. Now hotter than at this point in any of them.
His hot seat, week by week
The chance he’s out by the end of that season, as it stood after every week of his tenure here, by today’s model.
Hottest: 2026, week 4 (29%, 16th-hottest of 137 FBS jobs that week). Top factor: ▲ Hotter 1-3, outscored by 23
Earlier seasons price the games left with power ratings rebuilt after those seasons ended.
What drives his number
The biggest factors, each against the typical FBS job today.
- ▲ Hotter4-5, outscored by 71
- ▲ Hotter$4.9M buyout · 2.6× his pay, a multiple below average in FBS — cheap to move on
- ▲ Hotter12-13 over his previous two seasons here
What happened to coaches like him, 2004–2025
A different comparison: past coaches, not today’s, grouped by one fact at a time. Neither line knows the games he has left or his contract, so they can sit above or below his chance.
- Were 4-5 after 9 games
- 10% pushed out over results · of 415 coaches
- Were in years 3-4, after 9 games
- 12% pushed out over results · of 748 coaches
How good is this number? Checked on every FBS coach from 2010 to 2025, with its percentages calibrated each season on earlier years only: they track what happened — coaches it put near 25% were out about a quarter of the time — and a version pricing the games left with the previous season’s ratings ranked jobs as well as the ranking this page used before. Each week it learns from coaches who were still on the job at that point, so a firing during the season counts. In the Boiling zone it has run a few points high. Every job, and the method.
No headlines named him in the last 7 days
Offense: 125th of 138 per play. Defense: 98th.
2 games left
- Sat Nov 14vs. Utah State (3-5)35%
- Sat Nov 21at Boise State (7-1)7%
Percent: San Diego State’s chance to win, from the site’s model. Records are through today. Networks as announced; the rest are set closer to kickoff.
How the season got here
Where San Diego State stood among 138 FBS programs by stature after each game (1st is the highest; the CFB Zeitgeist ledger).
- Oct 26–Nov 1W 26-20 vs. Washington State0 headlines
- Oct 19–25L 49-56 at Colorado State1 headline · 81st of 138Sean Lewis reacts to Stone Saunders' breakout performance in San Diego State loss
Sports Illustrated - Oct 12–18W 26-23 vs. Fresno State1 headline · 82nd of 138
- Oct 5–11L 14-66 at Oregon State2 headlines · 70th of 138What Sean Lewis said after San Diego State was crushed by Oregon State
OregonLive - Sep 28–Oct 4W 31-29 vs. Texas State0 headlines
- Sep 21–27 · rebuiltL 16-41 at Toledo1 headline · 83rd of 138
Each week as this page showed it at the time. Weeks marked rebuilt came before this page existed: they were built afterward from only what was known by the end of that week.
Watch the biggest plays from San Diego State’s games, ranked by how much each moved the chance to win.
Fans
Fan chatter
- Oct 17W 26-23 vs. Fresno State
Sean Lewis is a con artist. 3 years now he stubbornly sticks with a QB that isn't working. Fire him and the AD.
San Diego State fan - Oct 3W 31-29 vs. Texas State
Sean Lewis is trying to get fired. Denegal is not good. I don't know why he insists on playing him. They'd be better off running the triple option.
San Diego State fan - Sep 26L 16-41 at Toledo
🥱 Call me when Denegal or Sean Lewis are off this team. Denegal is completely ineffective but the offensive scheme of this team is lackluster, predictable, and lifeless.
San Diego State fan
Several stories about him in the last 30 days
Bye week. Next: Utah State, Sat Nov 14
from a few outlets and r/CFB
San Diego State's upset of Texas State gives Sean Lewis something he needed ahead of Oregon State
Sports Illustrated +1 Oct 8 · a few outlets
What they’re talking about
The headlines for each topic are on the News tab.
Many stories about him this season
from many outlets and r/CFB
San Diego State's upset of Texas State gives Sean Lewis something he needed ahead of Oregon State
Sports Illustrated +1 Oct 8 · a few outlets
What they’re talking about
The headlines for each topic are on the News tab.
What was said at each stop
Stories we tracked, by school.
San Diego StateDozens of stories2024 to now
Most about: game preview, press conference and quotes, conference and schedule.
- Sports Illustrated +1Sean Lewis, Lucky Sutton open fall camp with high expectations for San Diego State’s first Pac-12 seasonAug 6
- Sports Illustrated +1What Sean Lewis said about San Diego State’s first public scrimmageAug 12
All 2 articles
- Sports Illustrated +1What Sean Lewis, SDSU players said ahead of UCLA matchupSep 7
All 2 articles
Sports IllustratedWhat Sean Lewis, SDSU players said ahead of UCLA matchupYahoo SportsWhat Sean Lewis, SDSU players said ahead of UCLA matchup 
Heavy +1UCLA Gets 'Hollywood Set' Warning From San Diego State HC Sean Lewis Before Rose Bowl ShowdownSep 11- Sports Illustrated +1San Diego State's upset of Texas State gives Sean Lewis something he needed ahead of Oregon StateOct 8
Kent StateOne story2018 to 2022
Most about: contract and pay.
- Sean Lewis Inks Extension with Kent StateAug 9
Is he on the hot seat? What has he said?
Across his career
35 stories about him across 9 seasons
Stories are headlines grouped by what they are about, counted through Nov 4.
Stats
Big games
Pick a job to see its years on their own.
The big-game ledger
How he does in the games that matter most — rivalry record, performance broken out by real opponent tier, one-score games, and his toughest historical matchup.
4-1 against his rivals at Kent State. Winless in 3 tries against Jason Candle.
Signature games
Tags describe each game; they aren’t scores. The weighting that picks these games is still being tested.
The big-game ledger
How he does in the games that matter most — rivalry record, performance broken out by real opponent tier, one-score games, and his toughest historical matchup.
2-0 against his rivals at San Diego State.
Signature games
Tags describe each game; they aren’t scores. The weighting that picks these games is still being tested.
The big-game ledger
How he does in the games that matter most — rivalry record, performance broken out by real opponent tier, one-score games, and his toughest historical matchup.
6-1 against his rivals. Winless in 3 tries against Jason Candle.
Signature games
Tags describe each game; they aren’t scores. The weighting that picks these games is still being tested.
ATS is his record against the spread: did his team beat the closing betting line, winning by more than it or losing by less? Lines start in 2013; a dash means fewer than 6 of those games had one. One-score games carry no spread record: a big favorite that wins a close game has almost always failed to cover, so that number would say nothing about the coach.
How he plays
Run/pass mix, by field position
Ran more than the situation called for under Johnson.
1,635 run and pass snaps at San Diego State, 2024–2025, his own games, one row per offensive coordinator. Each cell is how much more often he passed than the rest of FBS did in the same situation (field zone, down, distance, score, quarter, same season), in percentage points.
Pass rate, stint by stint
Where each stint’s offense sat between run-first and pass-first, and how far it moved from one season to the next, against the FBS-wide average of 41% pass. The band is that stint’s real season-to-season range, not a fixed-width box.
Season-to-season pass-rate range for all 449 FBS coaching stints with at least three covered seasons, 2004–2025.
Building the roster
Five numbers on how he actually stocks a roster, from signing day to draft day.
His recruiting, really
His 3 ranked San Diego State classes of his own have averaged #78 nationally — best #72, worst #83.
Kent StateSan Diego StateAcross every program: 7 ranked classes of his own, averaging #93 nationally.
His class — he had the full signing cycleTransition — he was hired mid-cycle
Rank is each signing class’s national recruiting rank (#1 is best). Only a class he had a full signing cycle to build counts as his; inherited and mid-transition classes still show here, faded, but stay out of the average.
Roster ownership
Roster ownership
of his 2026 roster arrived on his watch — 134 of 151 players. The other 17 are holdovers from before he was hired.
Of his own players on this roster, 25% came through the transfer portal; the rest are non-portal arrivals (high-school signees, JUCO transfers, walk-ons).
27% of his 179 new players since 2024 came through the portal (FBS programs, same seasons: 29%). His share was 36% in 2024 and 20% in 2026.
Graded on the players who arrived and the players who left together, his portal seasons came out better than most FBS programs’ in 1 of the 3 seasons graded. our read
Each player counts once, in the season he arrived. 2021, the first season of portal tracking here, is left off because its arrival records look incomplete (about 31 new players per FBS team, against 52 in 2022). Portal grade: the site’s position-value-weighted scoring (the same engine as the Portal Heat feed and the “Who won the portal” grade): the value of the players who came in minus the value of the ones who left, ranked against every FBS program’s grade that same season. A season with fewer than 4 transfers in and out is not graded.
“His own” means the player arrived while he was head coach; “inherited” means a predecessor brought him in.
Size up front
Size up front
Offensive linemen on his Kent State rosters have averaged 7 lb lighter than the FBS average (2018–2022) — lighter than 90% of FBS coaching runs since 2010. In the three seasons before he arrived, Kent State’s line averaged 10 lb lighter than the FBS average.
Average listed weight of every offensive lineman on each season’s roster, holdovers included, against every FBS roster that season (2010 on; a program needs 3+ seasons under him to appear). Weights are the ones programs publish, and programs list differently. This describes size only — not scheme, and not quality.
Where he recruits
is his biggest recruiting state: 47 of 63 signees (75%) across his 2024–2026 tenure, drawn from 8 states in all. Next: TX (5).
81% of his signees come from CA and its 3 border states (AZ 2, NV 2).
Off this map: 6 signees to the east (TX 5, IN), 1 to the west (HI) and 1 to the north (WA).
- median hometown distance
- 259 mi
- within 100 mi
- 37%
- within 500 mi
- 70%
- beyond 1,000 mi
- 26%
The map counts signed recruits across his tenure; the distance figures cover his current roster, transfers and walk-ons included. Two different groups, kept separate on purpose.
The NFL pipeline
The NFL pipeline
players drafted into the NFL off his teams here. None were his own recruits yet: all 1 roster-verified picks arrived under Brady Hoke. 1 went in the first round.
| Year | Pick | Player | Pos | NFL team | Note |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2026 | R1.27 | Chris Johnson | Cornerback |  Miami Dolphins | recruited under Brady Hoke |
A pick counts toward his tenure when the player’s final college season was one he coached, a checkable rule rather than a claim about who developed the player. A blank note means the player is on a verified roster and arrived on his watch. “Estimated” means no roster record, so the final season is assumed to be the year before the draft.
News
Stories about him
Headlines, grouped by what they are about. Each is the outlet’s own.
This week
Press conference and quotes
- OregonLiveWhat Sean Lewis said after San Diego State was crushed by Oregon StateOct 11
- Sports IllustratedSean Lewis reacts to Stone Saunders' breakout performance in San Diego State lossOct 25
Quarterback and depth chart
- Sports IllustratedSan Diego State coach Sean Lewis puts quarterback Jayden Denegal's starting job in questionOct 10
- Sports IllustratedSan Diego State coach Sean Lewis hints at quarterback shakeup ahead of Fresno State gameOct 12
This season
Press conference and quotes
- Sports Illustrated +1What Sean Lewis said about San Diego State’s first public scrimmageAug 12
All 2 articles
- Sports Illustrated +1What Sean Lewis, SDSU players said ahead of UCLA matchupSep 7
All 2 articles
Sports IllustratedWhat Sean Lewis, SDSU players said ahead of UCLA matchupYahoo SportsWhat Sean Lewis, SDSU players said ahead of UCLA matchup - Sports IllustratedSean Lewis, San Diego State players react to 53-20 season-opening winSep 6
Locked OnUCLA Bruins respond to Sean Lewis' Shots, Bob Chesney ignites Rivalry FireSep 11- OregonLiveWhat Sean Lewis said after San Diego State was crushed by Oregon StateOct 11
Game preview
- Sports Illustrated +1San Diego State's upset of Texas State gives Sean Lewis something he needed ahead of Oregon StateOct 8
On3SDSU coach Sean Lewis ahead of matchup vs. UCLA: 'I'll take me and mine against theirs'Sep 10- San Diego State AztecsSean lewis previews james madison - SEP 14, 2026Sep 14
- San Diego State AztecsJMU game preview with sean lewis - SAN diego sports 760Sep 18
- San Diego State AztecsSean lewis post game VS JMU - SEP 19, 2026Sep 20
Loss
- Sports Illustrated +1Sean Lewis, Lucky Sutton open fall camp with high expectations for San Diego State’s first Pac-12 seasonAug 6
- NBC 7 San Diego“No concerns” Sean Lewis on potential of SDSU offense after loss at UCLASep 14
Quarterback and depth chart
- Sports IllustratedSan Diego State coach Sean Lewis puts quarterback Jayden Denegal's starting job in questionOct 10
- Sports IllustratedSan Diego State coach Sean Lewis hints at quarterback shakeup ahead of Fresno State gameOct 12
In his own words
Every quote, back to July 2026
In his own words
No risk it, no biscuit
Everyone refers to it as a bye week and an off week; we talk about it as a work week
I think from a fundamental standpoint, our ability to strain and win at the point of attack is something that we need to continue to get better at
We have to do basic better
They got skill that’s explosive and they’re going to do a good job with their colors and flavors of the week
He’ll learn, he’ll grow from [his mistakes], but I’m really proud of his efforts
What we put out there is not what we wanted and we got to do better.
[We need to] handle hard better… and that would make us proud
Records don’t matter
He’s dynamic, he’s shifty, he’s got really good short-area quickness, so he’s able to make guys miss; then he’s got great long speed as well, when he gets a crease, he can go
They got a great trigger man; he’s a winner; he’s the straw that stirs the drink; he makes good decisions with the football
He learned from the real game experience that he got last week in Toledo
I think the kickoff return helped
You pop on the tape and the receivers pop, but they really want to spread you apart to run it
I have tremendous belief in our staff, our players, and the guys who are doing the work and the women who are doing the work each and every single day
I’ll call a better game for him so that he can be consistently good and that he can operate at a higher level
There’s been a lot of great lessons that we’ve learned
We’re going to do basic, better
[It is a] really dangerous Texas State team that’s coming in here; [they are] super explosive
When he’s consistent and clean… he drops a dime all over the yard
He’s got explosive playmaking abilities
The pieces need to play together; they need to move together
We are always a heck of a lot better through the hardship
There’s no need to make the superhero play and try to throw it over the top layer; be efficient on this play, not greedy
I thought he did a very nice job fighting and turning dirty yards; I thought he did a really nice job, really [hitting] one cut, getting downhill and squaring someone up
He doesn’t fill the stat sheet in a lot of things that are recorded, but he probably leads the team in a lot of the stats that you can’t even measure
He is one of the best teammates a guy could hope for; he’s a guy who shows up every day regardless of what’s going on in his personal life
The good was really good tonight, and the bad was really bad
The defense and special teams put us in a very advantageous spot to score quickly
You don’t know until you turn the lights on and the real bullets start flying
Structurally, they are very sound
I’m looking forward to some of these new characters as we step underneath the lights together for the first time, and we walk out to the battlefield together for the first time to see the look in their eye
When the opportunity presented itself, he earned it
He’s shown a tremendous amount through his character and his body of work.
This is the first time for me since the 2020 season to 2021 where there’s not a new quarterback that I’m breaking in
I know the quality of the work we’re going to be doing early in camp is going to be so much better than it was a year ago
From a leadership standpoint, what’s been really tangible this summer is that because of the work that he’s done, the respect that he’s earned in the locker room [and] the toughness that he showed playing through injury
All the stuff that isn’t seen on the tape we’ve got to get a lot better with
We will be able to do a little bit of everything with those guys
Anytime you get to come here and share with the community like we did tonight on the first Saturday at Snapdragon, it’s really special
We’ve had a really good camp through nine practices; congratulations; now it’s time to do more hard work at Snapdragon, and your loved ones and people in the community are going to see you
We were very intentional when (last) season ended up obviously with the injuries that occurred, in making sure that we had enough talent in that room
Operationally, he was really clean; he was making good decisions, he was decisive
I think all night long Malachi Finau and [Tano] Letuli inside have been really disruptive and anytime that you can create some dent inside that makes life really hard
Our standards and expectations are higher than any external labels that get put on it
Career
Hires into jobs like this
Hired into programs rated 28 to 28 (National Program III tier). Rough match, not calibrated yet — ranked on what the job inherited alone. Coaches hired into this same job aren’t used as comps.
- Rocky Long20118–5+2.0
- Brady Hoke20094–8-2.2
- Chuck Long20063–9-3.2
- Tom Craft20024–9-2.9
- Ted Tollner19944–7-1.2
- Al Luginbill19896–5-1.2
- Dennis Stolz19868–4+1.4
- Doug Scovil19816–5-0.4
Coaching career
The arc of his career is on Now.
Steady no large move in either direction on our stature ladder
9th-best San Diego State tenure of 11 by the numbers.
Followed Brady Hoke (2020–2023).
| Season | 2024 | 2025 | 2026 | Trend |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Record & result | ||||
| Record | 3-9 | 9-4 | 4-5 | |
| Postseason | — | L bowl | — | |
| Coordinators | ||||
| OC | — | Matt Johnson | Matt Johnson | |
| DC | Eric Schmidt | Rob Aurich | Demetrius Sumler | |
| Outcome — opponent-adjusted efficiency percentile | ||||
| Offense | 26 | 29 | 17 | |
| Defense | 11 | 94 | 26 | |
| Tendencies — play-by-play, neutral script | ||||
| 1st-down pass% | 48.8 | 34.7 | 35.9 | |
| Red-zone pass% | 41.6 | 20.0 | 32.1 | |
| 4th-down go%opp. territory | 33.3 | 37.3 | 25.0 | |
Underperforms his recruiting talent on offense and performs about as expected for his recruiting talent on defense.
Typical size for position, once adjusted for position mix.
Recruits younger transfers than most — more of a development bet.
14th-best Kent State tenure of 19 by the numbers.
Followed Paul Haynes (2013–2017) · succeeded by Kenni Burns (2023–2024).
| Season | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 | Trend |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Record & result | ||||||
| Record | 2-10 | 7-6 | 3-1 | 7-7 | 5-7 | |
| Postseason | — | W bowl | — | L bowl | — | |
| Coordinators | ||||||
| OC | Andrew Sowder | Andrew Sowder | Andrew Sowder | Andrew Sowder | Andrew Sowder | |
| DC | Tom Kaufman | Tom Kaufman | Tom Kaufman | Tom Kaufman | Jeremiah Johnson | |
| Outcome — opponent-adjusted efficiency percentile | ||||||
| Offense | 20 | 65 | 85 | 92 | 58 | |
| Defense | 38 | 10 | 37 | 10 | 32 | |
| Tendencies — play-by-play, neutral script | ||||||
| 1st-down pass% | 49.8 | 47.9 | 41.7 | 44.3 | 40.2 | |
| Red-zone pass% | 38.5 | 30.8 | 29.2 | 28.7 | 34.0 | |
| 4th-down go%opp. territory | 36.2 | 17.0 | 63.6 | 34.6 | 38.6 | |
Outperforms his recruiting talent on offense and underperforms his recruiting talent on defense.
Barely touches the portal — recruits and develops his own.
Brings in smaller-than-position-typical players than most.
Recruits older, more experienced transfers than most.
All-time wins
Wins at programs this site tracks, 1936–present — one consistent count for every coach, not each program’s own historically reported total.
3rd all-time at Kent State
Was he good?
The data leans positive, where the data can separate from zero: every conclusive reading points the same way.
+0.4 pts at Kent State · #658 of 1290 · middle halfModel fit as of 2026-09-04.
Coordinator years
Offensive coordinator across 3 programs, 3 stints, before and after wearing the head-coach hat — every season measured on the same axis, whether he personally ran the unit or someone else did.
How to read this. Coordinator seasons come from our coordinator career records; head-coaching-era seasons are the same unit's FBS-relative percentile for those years, regardless of who coached it, read directly from the staff assignments record. A role change (a “hinge”) is a fact, never a performance verdict — only the season-by-season data itself is colored by outcome.