BYU\u2019s receiving corps has taken hits this offseason. First, Parker Kingston was removed from BYU (both as a student and from the football team) in mid-February 2026 after his arrest on a first-degree felony rape charge. Many assumed that Cody Hagen would take on Kingston\u2019s role as the speedster on the team with special teams acumen in the return game.<\/p>\n
Unfortunately, that vision is now gone as Hagen reportedly is announcing his retirement from football and leaving the team. He battled injuries, including a knee injury he suffered in the Pop-Tarts Bowl.<\/p>\n
Hagen was a former 4-star recruit and one of BYU\u2019s fastest players. He had shown flashes of big-play ability (especially on gadget plays and returns) but battled injuries.<\/p>\n
Last season, he caught 12 passes for 97 yards and rushed the ball nine times for 93 yards, including two for touchdowns. He also totaled over 400 yards in the kick return game, a place he likely was going to excel at in 2026.<\/p>\n
However, injuries seemed to have frustrated the career of the Draper native. Hagen was seen at spring practice with a heavy knee brace on in early March.<\/p>\n
The 2021 Utah Gatorade Player of the Year is choosing to medically retire. We at Vanquish the Foe wish him the best in his future endeavors.<\/p>\n
As for the football team, this leaves quite the conundrum. What does the BYU receiver room look like without the speedy Hagen?<\/p>\n
The most important question (tongue-in-cheek) is- who is going to make the \u201cTornado Reverse\u201d play look like a work of art now?<\/p>\n
Oregon transfer Kyler Kasper is fully entrenched as one of the guys Aaron Roderick will count on in this offense. Jojo Phillips is likely the second option for quarterback Bear Bachmeier. Now, without Hagen, names like Bear\u2019s brother Tiger Bachmeier, Tei Nacua, Reggie Frischknecht, and incoming freshman Jaron Pula need to step up.<\/p>\n
BYU kicks off against Utah Tech in just over 100 days. Fall camp begins later this summer. The Cougars have time to hash out the pecking order in the receiver room. Still, Hagen is a big loss to the offense and the entire team.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BYU\u2019s receiving corps has taken hits this offseason. First, Parker Kingston was removed from BYU (both as a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":898454,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2026],"tags":[4385,7],"class_list":["post-898453","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-football","tag-byu-football","tag-football"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/116620068373884181","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/898453","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=898453"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/898453\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/898454"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=898453"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=898453"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=898453"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}