Sunday Chat is a weekly feature appearing in The Blade’s print and digital platforms each Sunday.
The 2013 Mid-American Conference championship game will forever be one of the biggest highlights and most significant moments in Bowling Green State University football history.
It still is for the head coach who led the Falcons to a victory.
Dave Clawson views the Falcons’ 47-27 MAC title game win over an unbeaten and nationally ranked Northern Illinois team as one of the best in his 25-year head coaching career. The veteran mentor, who guided BGSU from 2009 to 2013, stepped down as Wake Forest’s head coach on Dec. 16 after 11 seasons and remarkable success leading the Demon Deacons; he is continuing to work for the university as special adviser to vice president and director of athletics John Currie.
Clawson, a native of Youngstown, New York, had plenty of success at each school he led. The 57-year-old is the only coach in NCAA history to win at least 10 games in a single season at four different Division I institutions.
Prior to arriving in northwest Ohio, Clawson went 29-29 in five seasons at Fordham, including a 10-3 mark in 2002 that included a Patriot League title and an NCAA Division I-AA tournament appearance, and 29-20 in four seasons at Richmond, including two league titles and tournament appearances.
Clawson went 10-3 as BGSU’s coach in 2013 and 32-31 overall before taking over at Wake Forest where he went 67-69 with seven straight bowl appearances from 2016 to 2022 (five wins). The Demon Deacons won the 2021 Atlantic Coast Conference Atlantic Division title and achieved the program’s first top-10 national ranking, doing so in 2021 and 2022.
The 2013 MAC title game, though, is a memory Clawson will never forget. The Falcons racked up nearly 600 yards of offense, with quarterback Matt Johnson throwing for 393 yards and five touchdowns and Travis Greene rushing for 133 yards and a score, en route to earning their first league championship since 1992.
The Blade caught up with Clawson to talk about his head coaching career.
The Blade: To do what you did in your time as Wake Forest’s coach, with the success that you had, what did that mean to you to be able to guide that program over the last 11 years?
Clawson: “It was an honor to be the head football coach at an institution like Wake Forest. It’s a first-class place. I loved the student athletes we were able to recruit here and coach here, and we had a great run. Seven bowl games and five bowl wins and making the ACC championship game, and to be ranked top 10 in the country two years in a row for the first time in the history of the school, we’re very proud of what we accomplished. But the best part of this job is working with the players, and I was very lucky to be able to coach some phenomenal young men during my time here.”
The Blade: Looking at your coaching career in general, to lead four different Division I schools a 10-win season, tons of postseason success, how were you able to transfer that at each institution and be successful at each of those programs?
Clawson: “First of all, in all of those places, I was able to hire a really good staff. Nobody does these things alone. There was kind of a value system and principles of the program that we incorporated at all four places. Every school was different, so you kind of had to tweak a little bit how you built the team and built the program based on the relative strengths of the university. So for instance, Fordham was a Jesuit Catholic school in the inner city. Bowling Green is a regional university that’s much more rural, and different schools attract different types of kids. The institutions are known for different majors, and it was always trying to figure out ‘OK, who can we attract? What is a reason that typical students come to school here?’ And then based on that, you would kind of figure out what you want to do schematically offensively and defensively. So in terms of our value system and our standards, we were inflexible. With everything else, we were very flexible.”
The Blade: During your time at Bowling Green, was there anything you really learned about coaching or anything that really helped you out in your career?
Clawson: “I loved my time at Bowling Green. That was five of my favorite years of my career, and I would say, the thing that was so unique about Bowling Green is just the relationship with the community. So if you look at Fordham in New York City, Richmond in Richmond, Virginia, and then Wake Forest in Winston-Salem, those were all private schools in cities. In all three of those places, the campus was kind of a little bit removed. What I love about Bowling Green is the campus and the community were so intertwined. It just made for some great, great relationships, and I’m still in touch with a number of people from the community of Bowling Green. That was the best part of the Bowling Green job is just the relationship with the entire community, not just the students or the people and the university administration.”
The Blade: The 2013 MAC championship game was such a huge win for the program. What do you remember most about that game?
Clawson: “That year, Northern Illinois, I believe, was No. [14] in the country and we were, I believe, significant underdogs in that game. I just remembered the whole week of practice, the walk through the day before, just how focused our football team was. You never go into a game knowing you’re going to win, but I just remember that game, our players were so focused. They had prepared so well, and I just thought we were ready to play our very best football against a great football team. That was one of those nights, just everything clicked. Without a doubt, one of the favorite nights, most memorable games of my entire coaching career. I just remembered how happy that locker room was, all the positive energy, all the hugs, all the tears, and I’m still in touch with a lot of players from that team. Alex Bayer, who is a coach at Bowling Green now, we’re still in touch. I hired Alex, I hired Paul Swan, I hired David Kekuewa, who was our center. A lot of those guys from that team, I ended up hiring here at Wake Forest, and they started their coaching careers here. It was just such a close, tight-knit football team, and it was just awesome to be able to have that moment with them.”
The Blade: What was it like watching that team from the sideline, that offense with guys like Matt Johnson and Travis Greene?
Clawson: “They were just so locked in. When I first got there, we had a lot of seniors, and then they graduated and then we really started the building process. My second year, we were 2-10, and a lot of those same guys that were part of the 2-10 team, to watch them to be able, four years later, to win a championship and to see the adversity they fought through and how they improved as individuals and how we collectively improved, that’s what made it so rewarding because it wasn’t easy. It was hard, it was really hard. We went two years there that we didn’t make a bowl game, 2-10, 5-7, and they never stopped working. That’s what made it so rewarding is that from where we started to where we finished, and to do it with the same people, the joy was in the journey.”
The Blade: Bowling Green had some tough seasons, but these last few years, coach Scot Loeffler has turned the program around. Thoughts on the current state of BGSU football?
Clawson: “I’ve been following them very closely. Scot Loeffler and I are friends, and we talk. I was excited when he got the job, and I think in a lot of ways, he took over a program that needed rebuilding and they had some tough years. Now, they’re one of the very best teams in the MAC. … I think Scot’s done a great job there. He’s built the program in a way that’s sustainable, and they get better every year. I think he’s a really good football coach.”
First Published January 5, 2025, 1:30 p.m.
