SAN DIEGO – A Colorado sports legend, Darian Hagan, is set to join the San Diego State football coaching staff as its new running backs coach under head coach Sean Lewis.
Hagan, one of the names synonymous with Colorado's rise to glory in the late 1980s, just finished his 20th season overall on the CU football staff, which included 13 non-consecutive seasons as the school's running back coach. He has coached in 154 Division I-A (FBS) games as a full-time coach, and has coached four bowl games in his career.
With his collegiate coaching career beginning in 2004, Hagan has also served as the director of player development, director of player personnel, offensive assistant coach, and defensive technical intern following a playing career that included the 1990 National Championship and 1989 Sporting News Player of the Year.
In 2020, he knew he had a special back in Jarek Broussard, who would earn Pac-12 Offensive Player of the Year honors with 813 rushing yards in five games (895 including the Alamo Bowl). Coming off two ACL surgeries, Broussard was a recipient of the Mayo Clinic Comeback Player of the Year Award for the season, highlighted by his 301 yards in CU's 24-13 win at Arizona.
He was named an offensive assistant coach on Gary Barnett's staff on February 9, 2005, and worked with the skill position players on offense in the spring and fall in his first year as a full-time collegiate assistant.
A popular coach with his players yet with a stern touch, he was coaching true freshman Rodney Stewart on the way to a 1,000-yard season in 2008 until a season-ending injury at Texas A&M sidelined him in the ninth game of the year. Stewart's 622 yards were the third most by a CU freshman in school history. In 2010, Stewart hit the plateau and then some, rushing for 1,318 yards and in position to threaten many of the school's all-time rushing marks. In 2007, Hagan tutored Hugh Charles to a 1,000-yard year including the Independence Bowl; he went on to have a successful career in the Canadian Football League.
He coached his third thousand-yard rusher for the Buffaloes in 2016, when Phillip Lindsay recorded 1,189 yards in the regular season, the first to reach the mark since Stewart did so six years earlier. When Lindsay rushed for 1,474 yards in 2017, he became the first player in CU history to run for 1,000 or more yards in consecutive seasons. Then in 2018, he coached transfer Travon McMillian to another four-digit season (1,009 yards), just the second time the Buffaloes had three 1,000-yard runners in back-to-back-to-back seasons in their history.
Hagan made a difference in his first season (2006) mentoring the running backs, as CU had three 500-plus yard rushers for just the 10th time in its history. He also played a role in the development of quarterback Bernard Jackson, as Hagan's own skills of blending the run and the pass rubbed off on the Buff junior in his first year as a starter.
He starred at quarterback for the Buffaloes between 1988 and 1991, leading the school to its first national championship, and following his professional playing career, returned to CU in the mid-1990s to work as the Alumni C Club Director.
Arguably the best all-around athlete in the history of the CU football program, he was an integral part of CU's run at two national championships in 1989 and 1990. The Buffs were 11-1 in 1989, losing to Notre Dame in the Orange Bowl, but went 11-1-1 in 1990 with a win over the Irish in an Orange Bowl rematch to give CU its first national title in football. CU was 28-5-2 with him as the starting quarterback for three seasons, including a 20-0-1 mark in Big Eight Conference games as he led the Buffs to three straight league titles in 1989, 1990 and 1991. His 28-5-2 record as a starter (82.9 winning percentage) is the 37th best in college football history.
In 1989, he became just the sixth player in NCAA history at the time to run and pass for over 1,000 yards in the same season, finishing, as just a sophomore, fifth in the balloting for the Heisman Trophy. He established the school record for total offense with 5,808 yards (broken three years later by Kordell Stewart) and is one of two players ever at CU to amass over 2,000 yards both rushing and passing along with Bobby Anderson. He was a two-time all-Big Eight performer, and the league's offensive player of the year for 1989 when he also was afforded various All-America honors. He still holds several CU records and was the school's male athlete-of-the-year for the 1991-92 academic year.
In 2002, he was a member of the fourth class to be inducted into CU's Athletic Hall of Fame, and his jersey (No. 3) is one of several to have been honored. The Colorado Sports Hall of Fame finally recognized his achievements as well, inducting him into its prestigious group in the Class of 2014.
Hagan played for Toronto, Las Vegas and Edmonton over the course of five seasons in the Canadian Football League, mostly as a defensive back and special teams performer. He returned to CU to earn his diploma just prior to his last professional season, and graduated with a bachelor's degree in sociology in May 1996. He was hired later that year (December 1) as the Alumni C Club Director, a position he held for 16 months until leaving for an incredible opportunity in private business.
In the summer of 2015, he served as an assistant under former CU head coach Dan Hawkins for the champion Team USA in the Federation of American Football (IFAF) World Championship in Canton, Ohio.
He graduated from Los Angeles' Locke High School in 1988, where he lettered in football, basketball, baseball and track. He was drafted in two sports, football (by San Francisco in the fourth round in the 1992 NFL Draft) and baseball (selected as a shortstop by both Seattle and Toronto).
