The Military Bowl has both united and divided old friends.

The Friendship:

“[He] is one of my very best friends in the world,” Wake Forest head coach Dave Clawson said of Temple interim head coach Ed Foley. “We were in each other’s weddings. We were there when our first children were born.”

The coaches’ 27-year-old friendship began in 1989 when they were roommates.

“We paid $129 a month in rent to live in a house that was condemned a few years later,” Clawson said.

“I can tell a lot of stories that we are probably not going to be talking about in front of the public,” Foley said as he laughed.

Coaching Together:

When Clawson became the head coach at Fordham University in 1999, he hired Foley to be on his coaching staff.

“Ed is … kind-hearted. He’s a guy that would give you the shirt off his back,” Clawson said.

The two coached together for five years at Fordham.

Clawson left Fordham in 2003 to be the head coach at the University of Richmond. After Clawson’s departure, Foley took Fordham’s head coaching job. The two have not coached together since 2003.

Coaching Against Each Other in Military Bowl:

Now the duo will coach in the same game, but they will be opponents instead of friends. Their teams will face each other in the Military Bowl on Dec. 27.

“To know that I was going to go through [the Military Bowl] with Dave just is such a comforting feeling for me,” Foley said.

“If you don’t like Ed Foley, you don’t like people,” Clawson said. “He’s good people. It makes this bowl even more special for us.”