Dave Clawson information dump

If you want to win 3-5 titles over the next 10 years go get current Wake Forest HC Dave Clawson he is the next Saban.


So why should anyone consider Dave Clawson? It would be easy to downplay him. Coming into the season, he was only 40-45 at Wake Forest after all. He's never coached under a big name like Saban. He's barely over .500 in his career. But if you look closer, things get a lot more interesting:

At the end of this season, Wake Forest will have their 5th winning season in the last 6yrs. (Last season was the non-winning season and they likely would have had a winning season if not for COVID altering the schedule). Before Clawson, the Demon Deacons had only achieved 11 winning seasons over 42 years under their previous 7 coaches. Clawson is also the first coach to have 4 straight winning seasons at Wake Forest since the 1940s.

Clawson's record looks even better if you look at just seasons with 8 or more wins. This season is Wake's 3rd season in 5 years with 8 or more wins. Prior to Clawson, Wake had only 5 8-win seasons in it's history! Now I know what you're saying, "They played fewer games back in the day" and that's true. But, Wake has only had 13 seasons of 3 games above .500 or better in history and only 6 since 1945! Clawson also also Wake on pace for only it's second 10+ win season in history.

This will also be Clawson's 6th straight season taking the Demon Deacons to a bowl game, the longest streak and most overall by a coach in school history. While bowl games were harder to come by historically, Wake Forest only had 10 bowl appearances all-time prior to Clawson.

I hear you saying "Ok ok, he's done a good job at a historically pretty bad program. Is that it?" Clawson also took Bowling Green in 2013 to their first 10 win season in a decade and first MAC championship in 21 years. Neither thing Urban Meyer was able to do at BGSU.

Clawson's last few recruiting classes at BGSU also allowed helped Dino Babers to a 18-9 record and a conference championship which spring-boarded him to Syracuse (where he's battling to have only his second winning season in 6 years).
Clawson also had great success at Richmond where he won two conference championships
in 4 years, made the FCS playoffs twice including a Semi-Final appearance in 2007 where they
would lose to none other than the greatest CFB upset of all-time App St team. The following
year, Clawson's recruits would go on to win the FCS title under Mike London.

Clawson also
helped Richmond transition from the A-10 up to the CAA in 2007.
And even before his time at Richmond, Clawson had success at Fordham where he lead the
Rams to their first winning season at the FCS level in 2002 in the 12yrs since they had moved
up from Div III. The following year he would take them to their first 10 win season and FCS
playoff appearance. He would also probably be known as the best Fordham coach in modern
history if not for Joe Moorhead.

5. I mentioned recruits a few times already, so what about recruiting? In my opinion, Clawson
has proved himself to be a well above average recruiter at programs that have very few
resources. At BGSU, his average recruiting class rank was 90th when the average rank in the
five years before him (as far back as recruiting ranks go) averaged 99th and the 9 years since
have averaged over 100th. The 85th ranked recruiting class he pulled in 2013 is also the
second best class in school history.
At Wake Forest, Clawson is averaging the 60th best recruiting class while the 11yrs prior,
Wake averaged 68th. He also has the 5 highest ranked recruiting classes in school history.

So Clawson may not be flashy, but he has built up four different programs to either historic highs or their first major success in decades. Most impressive to me is that when he leaves programs, he's set them up for success with both coaches following him at BGSU & Richmond winning conference or national titles. He also has a chance to have Wake Forest's best season ever this season and he's doing it after losing a potential Heisman winner to the transfer portal! If I were an AD at any school with an opening, Dave Clawson would be one of the first people I call.