Some were huggers. Some were handshakers. Some were hip. Some were total Twitterphobes. Darian Hagan served all kinds, having been tasked with selling the Colorado Buffs football program for five different head coaches over the past 14 years as either an assistant coach or a support staffer.

Mel Tucker?

Different cat.

“When Coach (Gary) Barnett was here, we were recruiting nationwide,” Hagan, currently CU’s running backs coach, said of Tucker, CU’s first-year football boss. “When Coach Hawk (Dan Hawkins) was here, he kept it the same. When coach Mac (Mike MacIntyre) was here, he scaled back; he didn’t want to recruit nationally, so we picked places that were really good to us.

“When Coach Tucker got here, it made sense, coming from where he came from, that we recruit nationally. In Georgia, they had a philosophy where you’ve got to offer kids to get in the game. That’s what we’re doing: Offering kids to get into the game and try to get kids in here that are going to get us where we need to be and where we want to be.

“What our program had been (was), we’d gotten on the kids late. And now we’re getting on the kids early. And we’re going to reap benefits.”

The Buffs are already are, and in a big way. No football program in the Pac-12 — not Washington, not Stanford, not Oregon, not Utah, not USC or UCLA — had a more productive June than CU on the recruiting front, at least on volume. As of Friday morning, Tucker had notched seven commitments for the class of 2020 from June 1-21, according to the 247Sports.com database — tops in the league and more than twice the average (three commitments) gained by the other 11 league schools over the first three weeks of the month.

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The Buffs, who’ve hosted 22 prospects over the spring, went into the penultimate weekend of June with 11 commitments for 2020, tied for second in the Pac-12 with Cal, and two gets behind Oregon. CU will likely hit the start of Monday’s month-long “dead” period with more commits than Arizona (4), UCLA (4) and Utah (2) combined.

“They’re off to a good start in 2020, with a top-4 class in the Pac-12 yet only (11) commits, so they’re not close to being done,” said Brandon Huffman, national recruiting editor with 247Sports. “While they have no 2021 commits yet, they’ve done a good job of identifying and offering some early 2021 prospects that they could have a great shot with.”

CU’s 2020 class is ranked fourth among Pac-12 programs by 247Sports (131.92 points), narrowly trailing Stanford, checked in at third (131.97) behind Cal (141.58) and Oregon (203.78).

When junior-college defensive lineman Justin Jackson announced his commitment last Tuesday, it capped one of the most fruitful weeks in recent Buffs recruiting history, a stretch that saw six players commit over a span of six days.

“In today’s college football, you’ve really got to be aggressive offering kids, so you can recruit them and get to know them and get them to Boulder and get them on campus,” noted CU wide receivers coach Darrin Chiaverini, like Hagan, a former Buffs player and holdover from the previous head coaching regime.

“There’s no question Coach Tucker wants us to be aggressive, and we want to be aggressive. And I think that’ll pay off for us. But everybody’s playing the same game, too … you have to be aggressive, because every guy you offer isn’t going to show an interest in you, too.”

How aggressive? As of Friday afternoon, CU had 290 scholarship offers out to the class of 2020, according to the 247Sports database, which ranked second in the Pac-12 to Oregon’s 293.

Perspective: The Buffs offered 224 scholarships to the xlass of 2019, and 211 to the class of 2018 during MacIntyre’s final full recruiting cycle at the helm. From 2013-2018, CU averaged 181.3 offers per class.

Which means the Buffs have more than 100 more offers out than usual, and nearly 140 more than the typical Pac-12 program — as of June 21, CU’s peers had, on average, 168.3 offers aimed at the class of 2020.

The Buffs went into the weekend with 77 offers reportedly out for 2021, which is already more than two Pac-12 peers have out for 2020. CU had 15 more earmarked for the class of ’22, pushing the boat out a little farther.

“It’s smart, because frankly, that’s how recruiting is going now,” Huffman noted. “Arizona State and Oregon have both offered players that have yet to start high school. Some are local, some are outside of their backyard, but you’ve now given your chance to have 3-4 years of that kid knowing your name, knowing about your program, coming and visiting, going to games, and being indoctrinated by your program and coaches. It’s wise.”

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It’s shrewd. Shrewd as heck. While MacInytre stressed combing over California and Texas in recent classes, Tucker — no shock, given his mileage in the SEC and Big Ten — has kept a finger in both talent-rich pipelines, as well as laying new ones in the more fertile corners of Georgia, Louisiana, Arizona and Washington.

“It’s just a great environment that appeals to the parents and to the kids,” Tucker said. “We just have to find a way to sell them on that, enough where they will take a visit. Once they come to visit, it sells itself … the same things that we love about it, they love about it.”

Another new wrinkle: CU assistant coaches are being encouraged to recruit more to their specific position as opposed to a region, at least nationally.

“So say I’m the defensive backs coach,” Tucker explained to the Post recently. “I may have an area here in Colorado and an area in Texas, but when I go out on the road in the spring, I want to see defensive backs.

“And I may not hit my area, like (how) the old school used to be. ‘This guy would recruit this area or that area,’ that has kind of gone to the wayside … it’s so competitive and so specialized, that if I’m the defensive backs coach and I’m recruiting this offensive lineman that’s in my ‘area,’ that kid, he’s like, ‘Well, why isn’t the offensive line coach recruiting me?’ So you have to position-recruit. The (prospects) want to hear from their position coach, the coordinator and the head coach, (at least) the top players.”

Chiaverini noted that under previous regimes, during a four-week stretch he might be tasked with recruiting his assigned geographic area for two weeks and his position group for the other two.

“But this (cycle), we did four weeks of position (work),” he said. “I felt like we really, going in, got a good feel for our position.”

And once those kids get to Boulder, the campus perks — the Flatirons, Ralphie, the whole kitchen sink — make it easy for Tucker to close the deal.

“He does a really great job at building that relationship where he’s very up on technology,” said Cymone George, who left Georgia Southern to join Tucker’s administrative team as CU’s director of recruiting. “With recruits, every day, he’s calling and FaceTime-ing, checking the text messages. He’s big on really getting to know the person.”

Your typical weekend summer visit to CU, George said, usually kicks off with a prospect and/or their parents being picked up at some point on Friday at Denver International Airport. From there, it’s a sight-seeing jaunt through metro neighborhoods, then an icebreaker in LoDo, followed by a hop up to Boulder for a quick tour of facilities and personal time with the weight room and training staffs.

“We try not to throw too much at them right when they get off the plane,” George laughed. “That’s the major difference to me (from Georgia Southern): Everyone having to fly in.”

Different cat.

Different era.

“It’s actually been very surprising at how many people want to come visit, though,” George said. “We’ve had so many prospects the last six months, and that’s definitely eye-opening, that people want to be here. We have a great staff, now, so I think we’re moving in the right direction.”

CU 2020 football commitment list