BOULDER — He misses the way the Flatirons greeted him, after every sunset, like an old friend. He misses his Buffs teammates, brothers for life. He misses the holy heck out of Pasta Jay’s.
“That place was awesome,” CU legend Darian Hagan, now the running backs coach at San Diego State, told me by phone earlier this week. “I came back (to Boulder) this summer and I was doing daddy duties and I asked my son, ‘Where do you want to eat?’ And every day, he wanted to go to Pasta Jay’s, (so) I had to take him to Pasta Jay’s. We went there three out of the five days when I was (back).”
He misses the kids, Buffs icons who became family. Last Wednesday, former CU star and Broncos Pro Bowler Phillip Lindsay even called into Hagan’s position meeting. He put the former Denver South great on speakerphone.
“You guys have got to respect Coach Hagan; Coach Hagan is like a father to me,” Lindsay told the Aztec backs. “You all have got to listen to him. He’ll coach you up. You guys got any questions?”
Darn straight they did.
“And when (Lindsay) hung up, he said, ‘All right, Pops. I love you,’” Hagan recalled. “He’s really great … and that was (our) first padded practice. These guys, after hearing him talk to them and encouraging them, they all went out to practice and every last one of them had a very productive day.”
He misses Ralphie on the turn, Mark Johnson at the mic. This is the first August in 21 years that Hagan isn’t either coaching Buffs players, rallying CU alums, or both.
“I have no regrets,” said Hagan, who followed ex-CU offensive coordinator Sean Lewis, the Aztecs’ new head coach, in December. “It is weird. But at the same time, if you want to grow in this profession, you can’t stay in the same place when it’s time to move and adapt to life and its changes.”
He can’t speak on where Lewis and Deion Sanders might have gone south. (Lewis, through SDSU athletics, respectfully declined a request for an interview.) He did speak on sliding down Coach Prime’s coaching depth chart. When Team Sanders arrived in December 2022, Hagan, the incumbent running backs coach, essentially served as an analyst for a few months, then was transitioned to an off-field role, as executive director for community engagement and outreach.
“Deion and I were in the same building. We exchanged pleasantries a few times,” Hagan recalled. “Other than that, if he was walking somewhere and I was walking somewhere, I don’t think either one of us went out of our way to present things to each other. When we were around each other, it was always professional and cordial.
“But you’ve got to realize that the people that were there prior to Deion, I was with them for 20 years. Everyone there I love and respect and get along with.”
“You leave on good terms?” I asked.
“I believe so,” Hagan replied. “I know for a 100% fact that me and (athletic director) Rick George are fine. People at CU are fine.”
But the Buffs’ national championship QB missed the locker room. The meetings. The games. The camaraderie. As fate would have it, Lewis had to pass by Hagan’s office every day to get to CU’s practice. They struck up conversations and, eventually, a friendship. Lewis, who was stripped of his play-calling duties by Sanders after CU slipped to 4-4, wound up reaching out to the Buffs great as he assembled his inaugural SDSU staff.
“I was taking the job for all the right reasons,” Hagan said. “And I still believe I took the job for the right reasons. The reasons were, for me, to get to the field and do what I do — and that’s to coach and (help) young men to get to their best.
“I’m just happy that I’m in a place where I can be coaching and impacting men. So I don’t miss many things.”
Hagan and his Aztecs have plenty on their plate as it is. Transitioning from Brady Hoke to Lewis is like going from a Zamboni to a Bugatti Veyron. The SDSU of recent vintage had become Iowa Lite, punting to win, with defense-first, grindy 17-13 sort of tilts. Lewis’ offense in Boulder last fall, or at least the offense he was in charge of for eight games, reached at least 17 points by the third quarter on four different occasions.
“They were a (two-running-back formation) team, they huddled up every play,” Hagan said. “And now it’s go-go-go ball. And these guys, they’ve adapted really well to it, and the running backs have adapted well to it.”
Hagan’s family’s still in BoCo, while he’s living in a 1-bedroom apartment, 720 square feet, not far from the beach. Which is fine, he says, given that he only sees it from about 11:30 p.m. until maybe 5:30 the next morning anyway.
“You could save money just crashing at the football facility,” I said.
“I thought about it,” Hagan cracked. “I do have an air mattress in my car. If I have to be here (for) a real long night, I’ll go pull it out of the car and (bring) it to be office, crash out there.”
He’s married to his office now. Trying to get a sleeping giant turned around.
“Coach (Bill McCartney) told me this one time,” Hagan said. “‘Always be good, be respectful and have the wherewithal to understand to be always where your feet are currently.’”
Speaking of Mac, Hagan gets up and puts on red for work. Sacrilege, surely. Does it burn?
“Everybody says in life, you’ve got to turn over a new leaf,” Hagan laughed. “I turned over a new leaf. I’m embracing it.”
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