Coach Dave Clawson brings 20 years of coaching experience to Bowling Green State University, including 9 years of head coaching experience, most recently at Richmond (2004-07) and Fordham (1999-2003), where he combined for a 58-49 record. In 2007 he led the Richmond Spiders to the NCAA Football Championship Subdivision semifinals.
Clawson twice has been named national Division I-AA Coach of the Year, winning once at Fordham and once at Richmond, and was named his league's coach of the year four times in a seven-year span. In 2005 and 2007, the Richmond Touchdown Club selected him College Coach of the Year, and he was an Eddie Robinson Coach of the Year Award Finalist in 2002 and 2005.
His two head coaching jobs resurrected Fordham off 12 straight losing seasons into NCAA playoff participants and Richmond, which twice advanced to the postseason. Eight times in his 14 years as either an offensive coordinator or head coach, Clawson's quarterbacks earned all-conference honors. In 1998 he accepted the head coaching position at Fordham, where he became the youngest Division I head coach in the nation (31). Then he guided Richmond to the biggest two-year turnaround in Spider football's 124-year history and an NCAA playoff berth the following year.
A native of Youngstown, N.Y., located just 30 minutes north of Buffalo, Clawson played football and basketball at Williams College in Massachusetts. After graduating in 1989, he began a two-year assistant coaching stop at Albany, then two years at Buffalo and three years at Lehigh. When Clawson was named offensive coordinator at Villanova, he helped establish 70 school records and led the Wildcats to the I-AA playoffs in 1996 and 1997. Clawson now prepares to lead the 2009 BGSU Falcons on our pursuit of a MAC Championship. He resides in Bowling Green with his wife, Catherine and their two children, Courtney and Eric. Please welcome the NEW Head Football Coach of the BGSU Falcons, Dave Clawson.