alcons head coach Dave Clawson
BOWLING GREEN, OH - If the talent evaluations are correct, there are going to be some pretty good football players on the field for Bowling Green in the near future.
New head coach Dave Clawson and his staff brought in 25 high school seniors for official visits. A total of 22 of those seniors signed national letters of intent to attend Bowling Green.
Clawson, who replaced Gregg Brandon on Dec. 12, 2008, met with the media and program backers on Wednesday to discuss the incoming players and show video highlights of each recruit.
We certainly won more battles than we lost, Clawson said. If youre going after the right guys, youre not going to get them all. We held onto the players we wanted to.
We had a great hit ratio, one of the highest Ive ever seen, he added.
The new staff, with just holdovers Doug Phillips and John Hunter concentrated on recruiting within a four-hour drive of the campus, an area Clawson called the state of Bowling Green. A total of 19 of the 22 players are from that region, including 12 from Ohio and five from Michigan.
Doing a great job in our backyard is and always will be a big priority for us, Clawson said. Occasionally we will go out of state, but we really want to do the majority of our recruiting in our backyard.
A lot of these players were committed to Bowling Green back in August and September and it was a great job by Doug and John to hold onto these guys for so long without a head coach, he added.
If one of the new recruits can help the team immediately, Clawson said they would play.
However, he would like to redshirt as many of the incoming players as possible, pointing out that giving up a year to redshirt as an 18-year-old could translate into a better year as a 22-year-old fifth-year senior.
Before being named head coach at Bowling Green, Clawson spent one year as the offensive coordinator at Tennessee. With the Volunteers he recruited Ohio and he was very familiar with many of the current recruits from that work.
Nine of BGs recruits are offensive skilled players, including John Pettigrew, 5-feet-10, 185 pounds, a first-team All-Ohio running back from Cuyahoga Valley Christian Academy, who finished his prep career as the eighth-leading rusher in Ohio high school history with 6,389 yards; running back Mark Mays, 5-10, 170, from Clayton Northmont, a top-100 Ohio recruit; and quarterback Matthew Schilz, 6-2, 190, from Arcadia, Calif., who threw for 3,200 yards and 31 touchdowns as a high school senior. Clawson said Schilz is the highest-rated quarterback in the country not going to a BCS school.
The Falcons also recruited a tight end and a fullback as Clawson is planning to install his own offense, which will include those positions, something not often used by recent BG teams, which featured four- and five-wide receiver sets.
Vince German, 6-2, 230 pounds, from Newark Licking Valley, is the fullback candidate and Alex Bayer, 6-4, 225, from Pickerington North was the recruited tight end. Germans older brother Tim will be a redshirt freshman offensive lineman for the Falcons this fall.
Clawsons first recruiting class is also heavy in defensive linemen and linebackers, both areas which will have holes to fill in the near future.
There are three new defensive ends Jairus Campbell, 6-5, 246 from Pickerington Central; Dylan Farrington, 6-5, 220, from Adrian, Mich., rated the No. 1 defensive end in Michigan by the Detroit Free Press; and Ronnie Goble, 6-3, 236, from Plymouth, Mich. Clawson said Goble could be a tight end, H-back, defensive end or linebacker.
There are also three recruits for the interior of the defensive line, including Jordon Roussos, 6-4, 256, from Carlynton Junior/Senior High School in Pittsburgh, who was named to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette Fabulous 22 list.
At linebacker, there are four new recruits, including Eric Jordan, 6-0, 220, from Sandusky, a second-team All-Ohio selection; and Dwayne Woods, 6-1, 220, from Cincinnati Princeton, who Clawson likes as a middle linebacker.
Tim Moore, 5-11, 185, from Mentor, is a defensive back recruit after earning first-team All-Ohio honors and being selected to participate in the Big 33 game in Hershey, Pa.
Clawson said he still has three scholarships for next season and after spring football, if there are some gaping holes or the staff missed a need, he will go after more players.
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