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Virginia's Marques Hagans Hired as Penn State's Wide Receivers Coach

Associate head coach and wide receivers coach Marques Hagans is leaving after 12 years with the UVA football program

Matt Newton

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Virginia associate head coach and wide receivers coach Marques Hagans is departing the UVA football program after 12 seasons to become the next wide receivers coach at Penn State, as first reported by On3's Matt Zenitz on Monday morning. 

Hagans replaces Taylor Stubblefield as the next wide receivers coach on James Franklin's staff at Penn State and joins another UVA alum and former Virginia coach Anthony Poindexter, who serves as Penn State's co-defensive coordinator and safeties coach. 

Marques Hagans leaves a lasting legacy as an icon of the Virginia football program both as a coach and as a player. A four-year letterwinner as a quarterback at UVA from 2002-2005, Hagans is currently 10th all-time in career passing at Virginia with 4,877 passing yards and ranks 7th in total offense with 5,779 total yards. A fifth round draft pick to the St. Louis Rams in 2016, Hagans spent time in St. Louis, Kansas City, Indianapolis, and Washington over the course of a five-year NFL career before retiring in 2010. 

Hagans began his coaching career at UVA as a graduate assistant in 2011 and became the wide receivers coach in 2013, a position he held under the tenures of three different head coaches, serving under Mike London, Bronco Mendenhall, and Tony Elliott, who promoted Hagans to the position of associate head coach at the start of 2022. 

Hagans is responsible for coaching nine of the top 15 wide receivers in Virginia football history and he coached arguably the most productive receiving cores in the ACC in both the 2019 and 2021 seasons. The list of notable wide receivers to be coached by Hagans is long and impressive and includes the likes of Olamide Zaccheaus, Kris Burd, Hasise DuBois, Darius Jennings, Billy Kemp, Joe Reed, Canaan Severin, Terrell Jana, Dontayvion Wicks, Keytaon Thompson, and Lavel Davis Jr.

The task of filling the position of wide receivers coach at Virginia will be a tremendous challenge for Tony Elliott, who will be hard-pressed to find someone who can not only recruit and develop talent at the level of Marques Hagans, but more importantly, who can connect with the players to way he has and who means as much to UVA football as Marques Hagans does. 

Update: Marques Hagans released the following statement on Monday morning. 

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Matt Newton
MATT NEWTON

Matt launched Virginia Cavaliers On SI in August of 2021 and has since served as the site's publisher and managing editor, covering all 23 NCAA Division I sports teams at the University of Virginia. He is from Downingtown, Pennsylvania and graduated from UVA in May of 2021.

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