Hagan elevated CU from regional bully to national football power
Editor’s note: The second in a five-part series on Colorado football icons.
He was ahead of his time, but Darian Hagan came along at the perfect time for the CU Buffs.
If Lamar Jackson could throw for 3,600 yards and run for 1,600 in a collegiate season, what kind of numbers might a young “Mr. Magic” put up with today’s spread out, zone-read, high-tempo offenses?
“I tell the guys all the time, I wish I could’ve been able to run the zone-read, RPOS, play-action, all that stuff,” the longtime Buffs running backs coach and iconic former CU signal-caller said with a chuckle.
“I’ll tell you what: If I was playing in this day and age, it’d be bad. My man (Kansas State quarterback) Skylar Thompson? We’d be going at it. (Oklahoma quarterback) Jalen Hurts? We’d be going at it. And Baker (Mayfield). There’d have been some fun games in the Big 12.”
Hagan turned 50 in February. And if that makes you feel old, hey, imagine how he feels.
“Yeah, (CU players) will come in and say, ‘Coach, man, you were fast,’ ” Hagan laughed. “‘Like, you were really good. I didn’t even know you were that fast.’ Stuff like that. I always tell them, ‘Yeah, man. That was about 18 pounds ago.’ ”
Arguably the most electric athlete ever to don a CU football uniform, the former Buffs quarterback was all about fun. And speed. And winning, mostly.
As a starter, the Los Angeles native steered CU to a 20-0-1 conference mark and three Big Eight titles from 1989-91. The straw that stirred the Buffs’ triple-option attack, the 5-foot-10 Hagan as a sophomore in ’89 became the first CU quarterback to throw for 1,000 yards and run for 1,000 in the same season. Hagan finished fifth in the Heisman Trophy balloting that fall and piloted the Buffs to the first of consecutive Orange Bowl showdowns with Notre Dame.
“Darian’s streaking down the sideline on the triple option, making things happen from the first time he was given a real shot,” said CU defensive icon Alfred “Big Al” Williams, Hagan’s former Buffs teammate. “And it was magical, man. He would always make a play when there was no play.
“I would say right now — this is a big statement — I would say he’s the best quarterback CU has ever had.”
With the exception of maybe Kordell Stewart, few Buffs faithful would put up much of an argument.
Even three decades after the fact, Hagan remains beloved in CU circles as the signal-caller that elevated the Buffs under thencoach Bill Mccartney from a regional bully to a national power. And even more beloved for his perfect record in three years as a starter against Nebraska (2-0-1), while also helping CU post a 3-0 mark against Oklahoma from 1989-91. Hagan had visited the Cornhuskers’ campus, but Mccartney convinced him to come to CU.
“(The Sooners) wanted to recruit me,” said Hagan, who’d also visited Oklahoma, Washington and Arizona before casting his lot with CU. “(Former OU quarterback) Jamelle (Holieway) was from Banning High (in Los Angeles) and he said, ‘They’re not going let you play quarterback.’”
Hagan landed in Boulder, and the rest is history.
And after leading CU to a 20-3 win over the Sooners in Norman 31 years ago, the Buffs’ old quarterback remembers getting an earful in the visiting locker room from Barry Switzer, the former OU coach.
“In 1989, when we played down there, Switzer said, ‘I’ve gotta find that that (expletive) Scott Hill,” Hagan said, referring to Hill, the former Oklahoma assistant. “(Switzer) said, ‘That son of a (expletive) told me you couldn’t throw. You’re better than anybody we had in our quarterback room.’ ”
Of Hagan’s three “acts” at CU, the first, as a player, was the most dynamic — but the latest, as a coach, has been the most enduring. A member of the Buffs’ Athletic 2002 Hall of Fame class, the Californian worked for about a year and a half as Alumni C Club Director in the late ’90s before going into private business.
Hagan returned to the Buffs’ fold as an intern-turned-assistant under Gary Barnett, his old offensive coordinator and position coach, in 2004 — and hasn’t looked back.
“He’s definitely one of those people, in my mind, that lives and breathes CU,” Buffs football coach Karl Dorrell said. “You need guys like him and (offensive coordinator) Darrin Chiaverini — those guys have played, they’ve had success here, they know what it looks like, they know what it should look like, in terms of building this program into the caliber of team that we’ve had in the past.”
The Buffs have cycled through six head coaches now in the last 15 seasons, or one every two and a half years. Yet Hagan’s been the one staff constant over that same span, serving in various roles under six different bosses.
“It’s crazy, being able to survive that,” Hagan said. “That tells you I’m doing something right. It’s a blessing to be at one place and not have to uproot your family and not have to go out and look for jobs and not be in stressful situations and being able to do your job and being at a place where people love and respect you at something.
“But I was also blessed, as an 18year-old, that Coach Mccartney stepped into my life and recruited me. Him and Coach Barnett, they stepped into my life and recruited me, along with (former CU assistant) Oliver Lucas. If those three people would never have been in my life, I don’t know where I would be right now.”