CU legend ditches Prime’s Buffs for better gig with Sean Lewis

Few people have given more to the University of Colorado’s football program than Darian Hagan, a legend on the field and a longtime coach after retiring.

Now a year after Deion Sanders took Hagan’s whistle, the 53-year-old is bolting with others to Southern California. BuffZone is reporting that Hagan will follow former CU offensive coordinator and now current San Diego State head coach Sean Lewis to the Aztecs to become the program’s running backs coach. The Buffs offensive line coach from this season, Bill O’Boyle, is also headed to San Diego State.

Hagan quarterbacked Colorado to its only national title in 1990, and has had two different stints coaching running backs with the Buffaloes, totaling 12 seasons. When Sanders got the led gig last year, Hagan was the only person to stay on staff but he was moved from running backs coach to an ambassador position. Not only will Hagan get his whistle back but he’ll get to be closer to his native Los Angeles.

Without Hagan coaching the run game, Colorado took a significant step back in 2023. It was maybe the lone area under Sanders where the Buffaloes obviously got worse than before. Hagan’s 2022 group still gained 109 yards per game on the ground (111th in the country,) which followed up a very similar performance in 2021. This season the Buffaloes had the worst rushing attack in the nation (133rd,) gaining just 68 yards a contest. Hagan not only played with CU’s all-time leading rusher in Eric Bieniemy), but he also coached the Buffs second-leading rusher in Phillip Lindsay, and third-leading rusher in Rodney Stewart.

All in all, the winningest quarterback in Buffaloes history spent 2006-10 and from 2016-22 as a coach for the Buffaloes and more time working for the University. Sanders was the seventh coach Hagan had worked for at CU, the list includes Gary Barnett, Dan Hawkins, Jon Embree, Mike MacIntyre, Mel Tucker and Karl Dorrell.