Bowling Green Gets Those MAC Championship Blues: The Curse of the Championship

OK, the Bowling Green Falcons beat us badly in the MAC Championship game in Detroit this past Friday, but they fell victim to the MAC Curse. Win, or even lose that game and start looking for a new coach.

It has been announced that Bowling Green's coach, Dave Clawson, has been hired by Wake Forest of the ACC, just like our head coach in 2012, Dave Doeren, jumped ship to North Carolina State, also of the ACC, after our victory in the MAC Chamionship last year.

Evidently, not only are bowl games there at the game scouting, but also the Big Guys looking for new coaches.

Of interest last year, our opponent, Kent State, also lost their head coach to Purdue of the Big Ten (11, 12, 13 or 14). Back in 2010, we lost our coach, Jerry Kill, to Minnesota of the Big Ten (11, 12, 13 or 14) after the MAC Championship game as well. Jerry Kill, however, unlike Doereen, had a proven track record for success, having built Southern Illinois into a power and taking a good program at NIU and making it better.

Dave Clawson turned programs around at Fordham and Richmond and was named national coach of the year at both of them before going to Bowling Green. He also was seriously considered for the head coach at East Carolina back in 2010. Hopefully, Clawson's duties at Bowling Green are over and he won't be coaching at the Little Caesar Bowl. The MAC needs to put a $2 million clause into contracts where the Big Guys have to pay us that much for every year our head coaches break their contract to go to a Big Guy school. All they have to do is ask one of their rich guy backers for the dough.

So far, our coach, Rod Carey, is still with NIU.

That's Life in the Mid-Majors. --RoadDog