On December 23, 2025, David Blake was named the twelfth head football coach in the 131-year history of the Bethany College football program.
Coach Blake, as well as his wife Ashley and his daughter Scarlett, takes over the Bison football program and brings an abundance of coaching experience at all levels to Bethany. Partnered with a blue-chip coaching pedigree, Blake's arrival signals a high-energy, modern era for a Bethany program looking to redefine its identity in the PAC.
Blake most recently served as a special teams analyst at Kent State University in 2025, working alongside Broyles Award nominee CJ Conrad and head coach Mark Carney. For the Golden Flashes, he helped take a program that was winless in 2024 to one of the biggest turnarounds in program history and also coached the 2025 Mid-American Conference's Special Teams Player of the Year in Da'Realyst Clark. While at Kent State, Blake cultivated an in-state and national recruiting footprint, including an active social media following larger than West Virginia University Head Coach Rich Rodriguez and Marshall University Head Coach Tony Gibson combined.
The Stoneboro, Pennsylvania native began his coaching career at the Division I level at the University of Memphis from 2016-18, where he worked three years of defensive quality control for Mike Norvell, the current Head Coach at Florida State University. At Memphis, he was also a part of a coaching staff that included the University of Oregon's Dan Lanning, Arizona State University's Kenny Dillingham, the University of Arkansas's Ryan Silverfield, Tulane University's Will Hall, and the University of Buffalo's Pete Lembo as they took the Tigers to three-straight postseason appearances and reached a national Top-25 ranking in 2017. Blake also made a stop at Auburn University in 2020 as a defensive assistant for Gus Malzahn. Â
In 2024, Blake served as the defensive coordinator and associate head coach at Concord University and was named the Mountain Lions' interim head coach. He also makes his way back to the Presidents' Athletic Conference for the first time since 2022, where he spent the season at Westminster College as the program's associate head coach and co-offensive coordinator, and coached the 2022 PAC Player of the Year, Ryan Gomes.
Blake landed his first Division III coaching experience at Rhodes College in 2019 and then went on to help build the football program at Bluefield State University ahead of its inaugural season in 2021 as the team's associate head coach and defensive coordinator. While in Southern West Virginia, the Big Blue was ranked first nationally in First Down Defense, fourth nationally in Passing Efficiency Defense, and was ranked first in both Total Defense and Scoring Defense among NCAA Division II Independents under Blake's direction.
No stranger to the Ohio Valley, Blake is an alumnus of West Liberty University, where he met his wife, Ashley, and was a four-year defensive back for the Hilltoppers. He graduated with his Bachelor of Science in Criminal Justice in 2009 and received his master of Science in Sport Commerce from Memphis, in addition to a nine-year career in the United States Navy.
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