Now at San Diego State, CU Buffs icon Darian Hagan adjusting to life away from Boulder | College Football Insider

There might not be one person more synonymous with Colorado Buffaloes football over the last 35 years than Darian Hagan.

Only one CU head coach in that time didn't coach Hagan or have Hagan on his staff. But even during Rick Neuheisel's tenure, Hagan took over as the director of Alumni C Club before leaving for a role in the private sector a few years later.

When Gary Barnett called him to be an offensive assistant for the 2005 season, Hagan was back in Boulder for good, either on the field coaching running backs or behind the scenes in player development.

After seeing his once-great program lose its way over the previous 15 years, Hagan, who quarterbacked CU's only national championship team, enjoyed seeing the Buffs’ return to relevance during Deion Sanders’ first season.

“That was awesome,” Hagan told The Denver Gazette. “Being back in the spotlight, everybody talking about Colorado, Colorado merchandise all over the place, all over the country. Every time you turn on TV, someone is wearing a Colorado hat, someone talking about Colorado football. Just being in the spotlight, it took me back to 1988 and ‘99 when I was playing and beyond when Coach (Bill McCartney) was there and even when Coach Neuheisel took over. It was a good feeling.”

There was only one thing missing — Hagan was in the stands, and not on the sidelines, watching it happen.

“I wasn't able to have influence on the kids the way I like to,” Hagan said. “That was the hard part, but the easy part was at the end of the day, I bleed black and gold and I'm always rooting for the University of Colorado.”

This year, for the first time in two decades, you won’t find Hagan in Colorado, and certainly not at practice for Deion Sanders’ Buffs.

Hagan has his own practice to attend as the running backs coach at San Diego State.

About an hour south of where he grew up in Los Angeles, Hagan is as close to home as he’s been since he left for CU in the late 80s.

“It's good to be back home where I was born and raised and be around a lot more of my friends that couldn't come to Colorado, that didn't have the money to drive or fly,” Hagan said. “And now these guys are, like 35-40 minutes away, some people (are) no more than an hour and getting to see them on a more consistent basis has been awesome.”

While Hagan will always have an opportunity to be a part of CU football in some capacity, it’s coaching that called him back. Coaching brought him to the Aztecs, where he is part of the first staff for Sean Lewis, who took over as the head coach at SDSU after one season as the offensive coordinator for the Buffs.

In Boulder together during all of 2023, there was a natural bond that built between Hagan and Lewis. When Lewis left for a job close to Hagan's hometown — and where Hagan recruited for years — it made sense why the two would pair up once again.

“As we built out the staff, we wanted to make sure we had guys with great character, which he does, that he was connected to the region that we needed to a great job recruiting in, which he’s proven to be a great asset in that regard, and then one of the guys who’s gonna be consistently himself," Lewis said. “When the time actually came, I was like, ‘Do you actually want to do this?’ And he said yes. It was pretty simple when it came to that point.”

With all of Hagan's jobs in his post-playing days, it’s coaching that draws him back. He credits Barnett, who insisted on bringing Hagan on board in the mid-2000s.

“He was one of the guys that kept telling me I would be a good coach, and I kept telling him no,” Hagan said. “I kept fighting it and then he said he didn't know of a better person that he would want around his team other than me.

"That right there was what I wanted to hear and it was new. It made my heart feel good and pulled my heart strings and the rest is history. I dove into it. Coaching, all it is is taking people to a place that they can't take themselves and I believe in that. That's why I do what I do.”

As long as he stays at San Diego State, Hagan will have the chance to come back to the place he calls home when the Aztecs likely visit one of Air Force or Colorado State in the coming years.

“It's probably the safest I feel anywhere else in the world,” Hagan said. “I don't have any type of pressure on me. I don't have to look over my shoulder or anything like that. It's home to me. It's a place where I come and I can have ultimate peace.”

While Hagan loves Colorado and Colorado loves him back, there’s one thing he won’t miss this winter.

“I don't have to shovel out the driveway,” Hagan said with a laugh.

What I’m thinking

Everything that happens in Boulder can go viral, apparently.

The CU social media team last week posted a clip of a Shedeur Sanders touchdown pass to LaJohntay Wester with the caption, “Darts only 🎯.” That one post has amassed nearly 15 million views on X.

Why? Well, the clip shows two different angles of the touchdown play with a hard cut from one to the other in the middle, which led Buffs skeptics to believe the video was actually showing two different plays.

Obviously, it wasn’t.

But, many teams across the country have since run with the joke, posting clips with the same “Darts only 🎯” caption. Shoot, even the Stanley Cup-champion Florida Panthers got in on it.

It’s nice to see we can all still have fun on the website formerly known as Twitter these days.

Still, this is just another example of just how crazy things can get online with Coach Prime’s team.

What I’m reading

- Data wiz and ESPN college football writer Bill Connelly previewed year two for the Buffs under Coach Prime. He takes a complete look at CU's improvements from 2023 to 2024, how Shedeur Sanders can take a step forward and what should qualify as a success this season in Boulder.

- The Athletic’s panel of national writers drafted the top 36 players in the country most likely to win the Heisman Trophy in 2024. It’s a helpful way to see which players you should watch on Saturdays. Hint: both Shedeur Sanders and Travis Hunter were selected quite high.

Quote of the week

“I love everything about it. (Sean Lewis) is a great man, he's a great leader. He's one of those guys that can pull the best out of grown men. He can pull the best out of student athletes and it's just a pleasure for me to be here. I was around some legends in Bill McCartney and Gary Barnett and he reminds me of those guys in every aspect of their teaching, their coaching and overall how they handle themselves as people. When he asked me to be his running back coach, I jumped at the opportunity not only to get back into coaching, but just to be around him more on a consistent basis. He's an awesome man.” — Darian Hagan on joining Sean Lewis’ staff at San Diego State