After coming back to Boone to coach at his beloved alma mater as an assistant, Shawn Clark became App State’s head coach late in the 2019 season and has led the Mountaineers to ring-worthy success while also taking down several ranked opponents.
One of those ranked wins even triggered the first Boone visit from ESPN’s College GameDay.
Hired as the 22nd head football coach in App State history on Dec. 13, 2019, Clark completed his fourth full season in 2023 with his third bowl victory, a third straight season with a win against a Top 25 opponent and a third season with at least nine victories. App State is one of only five Group of Five programs in the country (and 14 FBS programs nationally) with at least three nine-win seasons since the start of 2020.
Clark, whose contract runs through the 2026 season, has a 35-18 record following a 2023 campaign in which the Mountaineers won the final five games of the regular season with a “Keep Digging” mantra, captured the Sun Belt Conference’s East Division title and finished 9-5 thanks to a 13-9 victory against Miami (Ohio) in the Cure Bowl.
Clark added the 2023 bowl win to postseason victories in 2019 and 2020. He also won a Sun Belt East title in 2021 on the strength of a 10-2 regular season that year.
The Mountaineers have won three of their last five games against ranked teams thanks to top-20 victories in 2023 (at previously unbeaten James Madison), 2022 (at No. 6 Texas A&M) and 2021 (against Coastal Carolina). The 2023 season included two victories against teams with double-digit wins, as JMU was 10-0 at the time and Miami (Ohio) took an 11-2 record into the bowl matchup.
Clark was the only first-year FBS head coach in 2020 to win at least nine games, and he followed that by directing the Mountaineers to double-digit victories in 2021. A 17-14 win at No. 6 Texas A&M in 2022 — the program’s highest-profile victory since the 2007 upset of Michigan — led to ESPN’s College GameDay airing from Boone the following week.
With App State alum/country music star Luke Combs picking his alma mater as ESPN’s guest picker and Lee Corso putting on the giant Yosef head, the Mountaineers delivered with a dramatic victory against Troy.
The second half of the 2023 season included rivalry wins against Marshall, James Madison and Georgia Southern to finish atop a tough East Division in which all seven teams qualified for a bowl.
Clark has helped lead record-setting runs to conference titles and bowl victories, not just at App State, where he played from 1994-98 and had served as an assistant since 2016, but also in four other leagues during his two decades of college coaching experience.
An offensive lineman in college, Clark was a two-time All-American (1996 and 1998) and three-time all-conference selection (1995, 1996, 1998) for teams that went a combined 45-16 during his first five years in Boone. In fact, as a player during the 12-0 start in 1995 and a coach for the 2019 team that has set a single-season record for wins by an FBS program in the state of North Carolina, Clark has been part of the two App State teams to post 11 regular-season victories.
Clark graduated from App State with a bachelor’s degree in criminal justice in 1998 and earned a master’s degree in education from Louisville in 2003.
His wife, Jonelle, was a standout softball student-athlete at Eastern Kentucky and was inducted into EKU’s Athletics Hall of Fame in 2008. The Clarks have two children: a daughter, Giana, and a son, Braxton.
Clark made his official head coaching debut while leading the Mountaineers to a 31-17 victory against UAB in the 2019 R+L Carriers New Orleans Bowl eight days after his introductory press conference. Ranked 18th in the final Amway Coaches Poll of the season, App State went 13-1 to become the first Sun Belt team and the first FBS team from North Carolina to win 13 games in a season.
In 2020, while playing in the nation’s No. 5-ranked league, the Mountaineers secured a Myrtle Beach Bowl title and were one of just 13 teams nationally with at least nine victories — the three losses were against teams with a combined 28-5 record. They were the outright leader in wins by an FBS program in the state of North Carolina for the third straight year and either the outright leader or co-leader for the sixth straight year.
In 2021, the Mountaineers’ 10-2 regular season included signature wins against in-state foe East Carolina (36,752 fans witnessed App State jump out to a 33-9 lead in Charlotte’s Bank of America Stadium against the AAC’s third-place finisher), longtime rival Marshall, 14th-ranked Coastal Carolina and Black Saturday rival Georgia Southern (the 27-3 win tied for App State’s second-largest margin of victory in the modern era over the Eagles before being topped by the 28-point margin in the 2023 win).
Reaching double-figure wins in 2021, App State became one of just eight FBS programs with at least five 10-win seasons since 2015.
Working for championship-winning programs at Louisville and Eastern Kentucky before being part of a bowl win for Big Ten member Purdue and coaching at Kent State, Clark has been a vital part of App State’s historic FBS success.
Overseeing talented, hard-working offensive lines, he followed a December 2018 coaching change involving college teammate Scott Satterfield’s departure for Louisville by excelling as an aggressive offensive play-caller in a 45-13 bowl victory against Middle Tennessee. With valuable experience at his disposal, Clark was promoted to assistant head coach before the 2019 season with Eliah Drinkwitz in his first year as a college head coach.
In each of Clark’s four seasons coaching App State’s offensive line, with the Mountaineers earning four straight Sun Belt Conference titles while compiling a 43-10 record in that span, the line ranked in the top 25 nationally in both rushing yards per game and fewest sacks allowed. The unit was recognized by the Joe Moore Award as one of the nation’s top 15 offensive lines in 2018 and 2019, and all five starters on the 2019 line received All-Sun Belt Conference recognition.
Clark began his college coaching career at Louisville in 2001 and has been part of nine teams that won at least nine games. The Cardinals won a Conference USA championship and bowl game during an 11-2 season in 2001, when Clark was a graduate assistant, and he coached the offensive line at Eastern Kentucky from 2003-08.
The Colonels had a winning record in each of those six seasons, and Clark coached three All-Americans who went on to play in the NFL. Eastern Kentucky went a combined 17-7 with back-to-back league titles and FCS playoff appearances before Clark moved on to Purdue for a stint that ran from 2009-12. Two offensive linemen from the 2010 team were drafted, the Boilermakers capped a seven-win season in 2011 with a victory in the Little Caesars Pizza Bowl, and they made another bowl appearance a year later.
A head coaching change contributed to Clark relocating to Kent State, where he coached the offensive line from 2013-15. He was quickly promoted to run game coordinator at Kent State and served as the program’s assistant head coach in 2015, before Satterfield brought his college teammate back to Boone.
In 2016, the Mountaineers led the Sun Belt in rushing offense (250.9 yards per game to rank No. 10 nationally as well as No. 2 in Sun Belt history) and ranked 16th nationally in sacks allowed. The line also paved the way for running back Jalin Moore to be named the Sun Belt’s Offensive Player of the Year and steered Marcus Cox toward becoming the program’s all-time leading rusher with more than 5,000 career yards.
The Mountaineers led the Sun Belt in both rushing yards and fewest sacks in 2017, as they allowed only eight sacks (No. 2 nationally) and averaged 223.6 rushing yards per game to rank 22nd nationally. App State averaged 315.8 rushing yards during its 4-0 finish, going over 300 yards in each of the last three games, and it became the first Sun Belt program with three offensive linemen (Colby Gossett, Beau Nunn, Victor Johnson) named to the all-conference first team.
The 2018 team ranked 14th nationally in rushing yards per game (240.3) and 20th nationally with only 18 sacks allowed. Quarterback Zac Thomas was named the Sun Belt’s Offensive Player of the Year, and Darrynton Evans rushed for 1,187 yards even though he didn’t become the team’s primary back until after a season-ending injury sidelined Moore in Game 5.
Offensive linemen Parker Collins, Gossett and Nunn joined NFL franchises after learning from Clark at App State, and Johnson was the only senior starter on an offensive line that helped the 2019 team rank 16th nationally at 231.4 rushing yards per game and tied for 17th with only 18 sacks allowed.
By defeating Louisiana in the 2019 Sun Belt Championship Game, App State joined Clemson and Oklahoma as FBS programs with at least four straight conference titles.
CLARK AT A GLANCE
Coaching Experience
2001-02: Louisville (Graduate Assistant)
2003-08: Eastern Kentucky (Offensive Line)
2009-12: Purdue (Offensive Line)
2013-15: Kent State (Offensive Line)
2016-18: App State (Co-Offensive Coordinator/OL)
2019: App State (Assistant Head Coach/OL)
2020-present: App State (Head Coach)
Playing Experience
1994-98: App State (Offensive Guard)
Alma Mater: App State, 1998
Hometown: Charleston, W. Va.
Birthdate: Aug. 16, 1975
Wife: Jonelle
Children: Giana and Braxton
Twitter: @coach_sclark
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