Charlie Ragle

Arizona Wildcats coach Rich Rodriguez moved quickly, promoting Charlie Ragle to tight ends coach after news broke earlier Thursday that assistant Spencer Leftwich was leaving for UTEP.

Ragle, the former head coach at Scottsdale Chaparral High School, served this season as UA’s assistant director of football operations and the staff liaison for high school relations.

Ragle was head coach at Chaparral from 2007 to 2011, winning state championships in his division in 2009, 2010 and 2011 and compiling a 63-7 record.

Leftwich departed for UTEP, where his son, quarterback Mack Leftwich, is committed to sign in February.

“From the bottom of my heart, I’m so grateful and appreciative to Rich Rodriguez for giving me the opportunity to work with him and our staff at Arizona,” Leftwich said in a statement.

“I thoroughly enjoyed my time in Tucson and the success we had this year. This is an opportunity, to get my whole family together, that I just couldn’t pass up.”

Billy Kirelawich, the son of Arizona defensive line coach Bill Kirelawich, will be promoted to assistant director of operations. The younger Kirelawich was the program’s operations coordinator during the 2012 season.

Now that Greg Byrne (left) has hired Rich Rodriguez, the new coach has to hire his assistant coaches. Photo by Mark Evans, TucsonCitizen.com

Arizona Wildcats coach Rich Rodriguez said he would like to hire a few assistant coaches quickly — meaning in the next couple of weeks after teams end their regular season.

“Then I will be more deliberate than I have been in my career in hiring the rest,” he said Tuesday at his introductory news conference.

“It might be up to a month before I complete the staff.”

As it typical in these situations, Rodriguez is expected to bring in assistants who worked for him previously, either at Michigan or West Virginia or both. Mountaineers’ defensive coordinator Jeff Casteel is presumed to be a target.

Rodriguez will be careful to not overload his staff with only guys he has hired before. He and those assistants have recruited some in Arizona, Texas and California — the recruiting bases for the Wildcats — but Rodriguez acknowledges the need for stronger and more immediate ties to those areas.

(more…)