Colorado Buffaloes legend Darian Hagan is leaving Boulder.

According to BuffZone sources, Hagan has accepted an offer to coach running backs at San Diego State, joining the staff of former Buffs offensive coordinator Sean Lewis.

Hagan, who quarterbacked the Buffs to their only national title in 1990, has coached running backs at CU for 12 years in two different stints, from 2006-10 and from 2016-22.

When CU hired head coach Deion Sanders a year ago, Hagan was the only assistant coach retained, but not as a coach. He moved into an ambassador role under Sanders, but has desired to get back on the field in a coaching capacity. He will now have that opportunity with Lewis, who was the Buffs’ offensive coordinator this past year and was hired as San Diego State’s head coach last week.

Hagan, 53, is a native of the Los Angeles area and will have an opportunity to move closer to his hometown. For the majority of his adult life, however, Boulder has been Hagan’s home.

Elected to the CU Athletics Hall of Fame in 2002, Hagan was one of the best option quarterbacks in college football history. He went 28-5-2 as a starting quarterback with the Buffs — the most wins by a CU quarterback — including 20-0-1 in Big Eight play, helping CU to three consecutive conference titles.

As a sophomore in 1989, Hagan finished fifth in the balloting for the Heisman Trophy as he became just the sixth player in NCAA history to run and pass for over 1,000 yards in the same season.

After playing for several seasons in the Canadian Football League, Hagan returned to CU to complete his degree in 1996. Later that year, he was hired as the Alumni C Club Director and worked there for 16 months before going into private business.

In 2004, he made the decision to get into coaching and filled in as CU’s secondary coach during the spring of 2004. He spent that year as a defensive technical intern and has been at CU ever since.

After working as an offensive assistant under head coach Gary Barnett in 2005, Hagan was retained by Dan Hawkins in 2006 and promoted to running backs coach. He coached the running backs throughout Hawkins’ five-year tenure.

Under head coach Jon Embree, Hagan was the director of player personnel for two seasons (2011-12) and moved into the role of director of player development under Mike MacIntyre from 2013-15.

In 2016, MacIntyre promoted Hagan to the running backs coach role, a position he held until Sanders came to CU a year ago.

Hagan has worked for seven different head coaches at CU — Barnett, Hawkins, Embree, MacIntyre, Mel Tucker, Karl Dorrell and Sanders.

After playing with CU’s all-time leading rusher (Eric Bieniemy), he coached the program’s second-leading rusher (Phillip Lindsay) and third-leading rusher (Rodney Stewart). He also coached Hugh Charles (eighth).

Hagan coached three players who had 1,000-yard seasons in Stewart, Lindsay and Travon McMillian. (Charles also had a 1,000-yard season counting a bowl game, but CU does not recognize bowl stats in season totals). In addition, Hagan coached Jarek Broussard, who was the Pac-12 offensive player of the year and Mayo Clinic comeback player of the year in 2020.

During his time at CU, Hagan coached in 154 games, the third-most of any coach in program history.