Ticket sales for tonight’s Bowling Green at Buffalo game got a little boost thanks to Dave Clawson, the
Falcons’ head coach.
Clawson, in his first season with the Falcons, is a native of Youngstown, N.Y., located on the shores of
Lake Ontario, about 30 minutes north of Buffalo.
"I have some friends in the area, so I think they bought 40 or 50 (tickets)," Clawson said on
Monday. "We’ll have a little Youngstown, Lewiston crew up there up there in the stands."
Clawson was an assistant coach for two seasons at Buffalo, spending 1991 as the secondary coach and 1992
as the quarterbacks and running backs coach.
"I grew up in Western New York and worked at UB," Clawson said. "Anytime you get to go
back where you grew up, it’s always exciting.
"By the same token, professionally, you know there’s a job that you need to do," he continued.
"It’s not something that I have shared with our football team at all."
Clawson’s stint at Buffalo was before the Bulls became a Division I program and the current football
stadium was built.
"It’s neat to see how it’s evolved, 20 years later after the run to Division I started,"
Clawson said.
Kickoff is at 7 p.m. and the game will be televised on ESPN2.
The Falcons are 3-5 overall and 2-2 in the Mid-American Conference and Buffalo is 3-5, 1-3.
LAYOFF: Both Bowling Green and Buffalo have been idle since playing on Oct. 24.
"Anytime you have a bye week there are really three goals," Clawson said. "No. 1, get
yourself healthy. No. 2, maybe get back to doing some fundamental work. And the third thing is you get
an extra day or two of prep for your next opponent."
TURNOVERS: Bowling Green is averaging just over a turnover a game, with nine through the first eight
games.
However, the Falcons have generated only eight turnovers, four interceptions and four recovered fumbles,
and the lack of turnovers concerns Clawson.
"A lot of turnovers is just gang-tackling and getting a lot of guys to the football; having the
second, third and fourth guy in there trying to strip (the ball away)" Clawson said. "It’s a
matter of good solid defense, keeping an eye on the quarterback and when the ball is thrown, have four
or five guys breaking on it and just coming down with some tipped balls.
"We just have not done a good job with that all year," he continued. "We have not
generated enough turnovers on defense to get us some short field position."
Clawson thinks the Falcons have some playmakers on defense with the ability to force turnovers, but the
results have not been there.
He added that the turnover drills in practice have been pretty much the same this year as they were
during his head coaching tenure at Fordham and Richmond.
"We’ve done very similar drills. In some years when the season is over, you’ve generated 30
(turnovers)," Clawson said. "Right now we have not had as much success as we would like."

NEXT: After tonight the Falcons are idle until a Nov. 12 game at Miami with kickoff at 6 p.m..