Idaho State University head football coach Charlie Ragle has resigned from his position and is headed to Arizona State to take an assistant coaching job, according to a source familiar with the situation and multiple reports.
Ragle, who took over the program in December 2021, went 1-10 in his first and only season at ISU.
Defensive ends coach Vince Amey, who Ragle hired when he took over the program, will follow Ragle to ASU, per multiple reports.
“While we are disappointed to lose Coach after only one year, our vision for the future remains steadfast,” ISU athletic director Pauline Thiros said via the news release. “We will take this as an opportunity to find the right leader for ISU football and continue to build and invest in the program in a significant way.”
For Ragle, who is leaving just one year into the five-year contract he signed last December, his time in Pocatello was mired in unfortunate circumstances. In June, he had to find a few defensive backs coach when DaVonte’ Neal was arrested on a murder charge for an incident that occurred years ago in a separate state, meaning ISU could not have known about it. His safeties coach, JB Hall, took a position at Georgia Tech that summer.
In Week 2 of the season, ISU starting quarterback Tyler Vander Waal went down with a collarbone injury that sidelined him until the final game of the season, and by then, the Bengals had accumulated just one win. They dealt with a rash of injuries all year, which Ragle did not use as an excuse, but they made his job even harder.
Ragle himself dealt with health issues. Around the time he took over ISU’s program, he was diagnosed with atrial fibrillation, which is an irregular and rapid heart rhythm that can lead to blood clots in the heart. He took medication, but that forced him to miss Idaho State’s road game against Montana State on Oct. 8.
In his place, assistant head coach Edgar Weiser coached the team, and he will take over main football liaison duties in the interim, per release.
Ragle did deliver some highlights. The Bengals matched last season’s win total by beating Cal Poly back on Oct. 15. At the end of the season, wide receiver Xavier Guillory became an All-Big Sky second-team selection, and linebacker Charles Ike was named to the third team.
This change came together quickly. On Sunday night, Ragle called Thiros to alert her he was taking a different job, Thiros said. On Monday morning, Ragle called a team meeting, where he told the players he was leaving. Most were shocked by the news, per a source, and many who came to ISU because of Ragle may not stick around.
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Idaho State’s day has gone from bad to worse.
That list has already begun to expand. Xavier Guillory, a second-team All-Big Sky selection and arguably the team’s best player, announced Monday morning that he has entered the transfer portal. Later in the afternoon, receiver Benji Omayebu did the same. He became the sixth Bengal to enter the transfer portal since the end of the season, joining a list that already includes quarterback Tyler Vander Waal, receiver Shane Dailey Jr. and reserve linemen Mason Harwood and Jameson Helu, neither of whom saw action last season.
Ragle, who came to ISU after coaching Cal’s special teams for five seasons, will return to the state where his coaching career began. Ragle served as Moon Valley’s (Phoenix) defensive coordinator for five seasons, did the same at Chaparral (Scottsdale) for one season, then became a graduate assistant at ASU before returning to the high school ranks, where he became Chaparral’s head coach, leading the team to three state championships and a 63-7 record.
In Ragle’s time as Chaparral’s head coach, which stretched from 2007-2011, he coached quarterback Kenny Dillingham, who is Arizona State’s new head coach.
This has set in motion ISU’s search for a new head coach, which will begin immediately, with a different search firm than the one ISU used to hire Ragle, Thiros said.
On some level, Ragle was set up for success at ISU in ways previous head coaches were not. When Idaho State hired Ragle, the school boosted the assistant coach salary pool to nearly $600K, about a one-thirds increase from what previous head coach Rob Phenicie had. The program also completed the first stage of its Holt Arena renovation, which included new turf, new orange-and-black seating and a president’s deck, a luxury seating section.
The Bengals harbored hope that Ragle’s hire, in addition to the facility upgrades on the horizon, could usher in a new chapter of ISU football, whose history has been rocky. The program has now supplied two straight 1-10 seasons. The Bengals have not won back-to-back games since 2018. Their last Big Sky championship came in 2002.
They will have to wait longer for another. First they will need a new head coach.