Hagans making a difference in developing UVA’s wide receivers

By Jerry Ratcliffe

Olamide Zaccheaus was headed in the wrong direction, not living up to anyone’s expectations, including his own, as a Virginia football player. Hasise Dubois was on a similar path. Untapped potential, potentially four wasted years.

Marques Hagans changed all that. UVA’s wide receivers coach, now entering his eighth season in that role, stepped in and turned both players around.

Hagans had “Come to Jesus” meetings with Zaccheaus and Dubois, essentially confronting them about their dedication, their work habits, even their diets. Both players attributed their transformation into key players for the Cavaliers to those heart-to-heart conversations with their position coach.

Zaccheaus went on to become UVA’s record holder for career receptions (250), finished No. 1 in the ACC (No. 5 nationally) in receptions (93) his senior year and was MVP of the Wahoos’ stunning Belk Bowl win over South Carolina. He’s now playing with the Atlanta Falcons after going undrafted. Dubois seemed lost during his early years, then witnessed how Zaccheaus’ relationship with Hagans changed his career, changed his life.

Dubois went the entire 2019 season — 14 games — and didn’t drop a single pass as he etched his name in UVA lore.

Had Hagans not intervened, neither of these players would have flourished over their last two years of college.

“My responsibility is my passion, and that is my players, so on and off the field, who they become is really important to me,” said Hagans, a former UVA star who takes his role in shaping young men seriously. “Whether that’s a first-round draft pick, whether that’s a successful father, successful husband, working a job to provide for a family, those are both one in the same, making sure they graduate and making sure they’re making their family proud.”

His players have been huge contributors to Virginia’s success the past few years including Zaccheaus, Dubois, Joe Reed, Terrell Jana, Andre Levrone, Doni Dowling, Canaan Severin and others.

While he’s making a difference in building men, he’s done a nice job of helping advance Virginia’s passing game. Meanwhile, he’s blocking out everything else concerning this season, all the social media, all the cancellations and swirling rumors.

“I don’t make any decisions, I don’t make those calls,” Hagans said Friday during a video conference interview with media. “So the one thing that I can control is coaching my group and helping them become the best group that they can be, and that’s to be the best group in the ACC.

“As conferences make their own decisions, that’s up to them. I’m going to come here to work every single day, give it everything I have until I’m told otherwise. That’s the same message that I try to portray to my players. We come to work every single day working to get better and that’s the motive that we have, that we’ll play a game. We don’t know who, we don’t know where, we didn’t know when, but we’ll play a game and that’s what we’re working toward until they tell us otherwise.”

While the ACC has announced it intends to play an 11-game football schedule, the threat of Covid-19 and myocarditis loom large in the possibility of shutting down the season at any given minute.

UVA has already lost its opponent for a scheduled season opener. VMI announced this week that its athletic teams will not compete this fall, leaving the Cavaliers to find another opponent for its one allowance of a nonconference game, or to simply play its 10-game ACC schedule.

Hagans and his receiving corps just continue working, hoping for the best during the sizzling hot days of August training camp. If the weather isn’t challenging enough (UVA practices early morning to avoid the mid-day temps), then adding masks to their wardrobe certainly is.

“I think some of the players initially found it difficult to kind of adjust,” Hagans said. “I think now we’re starting to settle in. I don’t think we hear as many complaints as we did before, the first initial days of putting the helmets on.

“I think over time you find your way, you find a way to cope. Now I think they’re pretty good with dealing with how that’s going to affect them as far as playing and I think we’ve adjusted pretty well. I don’t think it will be much of a factor moving forward.”

Hagans admitted that it was easy for him to say because he’s not the one wearing the helmet, but he’s confident his players have gotten beyond that hurdle.

While the pandemic cancelled spring football, causing a temporary setback on development and chemistry, Hagans said there were also some benefits from steady contact with players via Zoom video conferencing.

“The negative was we lost the opportunity for chemistry in spring ball, however I think with Zoom we found out that we actually moved our team a little bit forward as far as being able to meet more, being able to do more football just from a standpoint of Zoom.”

He believes that as players returned (July 5) for voluntary workouts and training camp has started, UVA’s players have nearly caught up as far as chemistry and bonding, both on and off the field, as far as his receivers unit goes.

“I think the football part is starting to catch up because we’re able to get out here as a unit and connect with the quarterbacks and kind of making up for that lost time,” Hagans said. “There’s plenty of time before we play to continue to develop that chemistry, but there’s new players in all kinds of positions.

“Just finding that connection with the quarterbacks — we’ve got new quarterbacks, we’ve got new receivers — and so everybody’s working on finding that timing and chemistry, but I feel confident that with the time that we have, we’ll be able to be where we need to be for the first game.”

While UVA’s players have remained safe and healthy in the built-in bubble that school administrators and medical/training staff has provided, there’s a concern about the return of the school’s student body and how that could impact that safety.

“I think that makes you a little nervous,” Hagans said. “If we can’t keep our players housed all in the same place, that definitely makes you nervous. Kids are young, they’re going to live their life, they’re going to go to college, go out to eat and do things.

“They best thing we can do is educate our players and if they truly do want to play, then they have to do their part. So that means college life for them might be a lot different. That means some weekends hanging out might not look the same or going out to eat might not look the same. Hopefully that gives us the best chance to get to the first game and play throughout the season.”

It doesn’t hurt that Jana is returning as Virginia’s best receiver. At times last season, Jana, a graduate of nearby Woodberry Forest, was simply unstoppable. During a 14-game schedule that featured Dubois and Reed as two of the most lethal threats in the ACC, it was Jana who was the glue of the receiving group.

“[Jana] is the leader,” Hagans said. “He is the guy of the group and even though Joe and Hasise got a lot of notoriety from last year, Jana was really the leader of the group, and so he really assumes that role again this season. It’s a natural thing to him.”

Hagans said that Jana represents everything a coach wants in a player: hard work, sacrifice and dedication.

“I couldn’t pick a better leader to lead this group going into this season because on and off the field he embodies everything that you want. He is our leader and our guys will follow him wherever he goes.”

Hagans should know because he was that guy when he played for the Cavaliers from 2000 to 2005 and became a four-year letter winner, and he remains No. 8 all-time in UVA passing (he finished fifth upon graduation). He was also No. 5 in career total offense.

Bronco Mendenhall sleeps well at night knowing that Hagans handles such a dynamic group of UVA players. The “Good Hands People” are in really good hands.