Cal Football Countdown: 14 Days, Q&A With Charlie Ragle

Cal special teams coordinator Charlie Ragle has played a massive role in the Bears' success in recruiting the state of Arizona over the past two and a half years since he arrived. He's also put together a solid special teams unit, featuring returning starters at kicker, punter, and both return spots, along with bringing on a new starter at long snapper in Slater Zellers.

Ragle spoke to GoldenBearReport about the development of his special teams units as a whole, as well as recruiting his other home state of New Mexico, and another Eastern New Mexico alumnus who has made his way to coaching at Cal.

Daniel Scott noted that playing on Special Teams helped him in moving to playing safety more this year, do you see that helping with some of the true freshmen, like a Craig Woodson or a Curley Young, as something that could propel them to a bigger role next year?

I think the biggest thing, when you start talking about special teams, you cover a lot of ground so you're in space. Any time you've got a guy in space, you find out what kind of athlete he is and if you're not nimble, you're not athletic, you get exposed in space. You haven't played the game if you haven't gotten exposed, there's no doubt about it, some get more exposed than others. But, Daniel, for sure, I think that helped him. You saw him grow leaps and bounds confidence-wise, so as we move forward this year, you see a young guy like Craig Woodson who's had a tremendous camp and is really savvy and plays well out there, he'll definitely play for us on teams. Curley Young has showed some things as well, has got a motor, has got a twitch, can run, you're always looking for those guys that have speed and have that burst. He certainly has shown that. There's been some really nice, not surprises, but some of the young guys have done really well. Orin Patu's another one that pops out at you as well, the young guys on teams, so it's refreshing to see those guys doing those things and having a chance to help us.

Have you gotten any of your Arizona guys on special teams?

Oh yeah, big Braxten (Croteau) is working in there on some teams, kickoff, punt. Brett Johnson working as shield on punt, they're getting in there, mixing it up pretty good, it's been nice.

Everyone knows you for Arizona recruiting, but you also have roots in New Mexico (Ragle's home state where he played his college ball), how much are you able to go through there and recruit that talent pool?

In terms of population and producing a big quantity of division one kids, that's not the case, but every year they've got a couple of kids that can play at a high level. That's the key, identifying those guys and then going in there. I've still got a bunch of guys that I played with that are high school coaches, I still have a lot of good ties to the state. That's able to help me, just like anywhere in recruiting, it's about people. We're in there, recruiting and battling, obviously got Monroe (Young) last year, so it's good, I go Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, it works out nice and easy for me. It's good, and we'll continue to be in there and try to get a kid out of there every year if we can.

You and Mark Fox are, by serendipity, both at Cal after playing college ball at Eastern New Mexico, have you gotten to talk a little with him?

When he was at the Claremont for a recruiting function, I think we were doing the same thing this summer, and I got a chance to introduce myself to him, a couple old Greyhounds exchanging some pleasantries. When he got hired, I knew who he was and I knew that he had played at Eastern. It was pretty cool to have him here and named the head coach.

On some of the scrimmage stuff from Tuesday, your guys had a couple kicks blocked on FG and Punt work, is that on the kickers with trajectory like you previously mentioned?

Those were protection, protection broke down so we made some changes with some guys, get a little bit bigger, a little bit stouter. The punt was the same thing, one guy got too high, wasn't ready to take on the pressure, and got upside down and he blocked the punt, got knocked into it. The Op time (operation time, time from snap to kick) was 1.96 (seconds), which was good. When you play that shield spot you can't back up, he got knocked back into it and it caused a problem, I was not happy about that and it bothered me for a couple days. It bothers me, I let them know about that. We can't afford to have that period, so those guys know it, we'll get it cleaned up, but that was not a good deal.

What's your ideal Op Time for punts?

I think want to be right under two (seconds), I think if you're that 1.96-97 wheelhouse, I think you're in great shape. I think it's real hard, unless the snap is way out, pulls you outside of your pocket, if you're at 1.96-97, you're gonna be fine.

And field goals are around 1.25 (seconds)

Yeah, that would be a good time, we say under 1.3, I'd like to see them 1.25, 1.27, 1.28, I'm okay there. You don't want to get too fast, 1.2, 1.19, it's too fast. You want to be, 1.25 is a solid field goal, as long as you stay in that, you're in good shape.

Are you confident with the guys you've got back returning punts now, in Remigio, Crawford and both Hawkins?

I am, I think making the transition from Vic to Nikko after that BYU game, it was one of those deals where you're always worried when you put a true freshman back there, but he handled it with such poise and very rarely did he drop any. Now you see the hard work he's put in through the summer, I feel really confident in him having the chance to do some big things for us back there.