NAIA CHAMPIONSHIP SERIES – QUARTERFINALS
#5 SOU (11-0) at #4 Lindsey Wilson (11-0)
11 a.m. PST Saturday | Blue Raider Stadium | Columbia, Ky.
Live Stream | Live Stats | NAIA FCS Central
Where to Watch: Northwest Pizza & Pasta, Oak Tree Northwest Bar & Grill, Omar's Restaurant, RedZone Sports Bar & Grill, Mr. Smith's Bar & Grill (Medford)

ASHLAND – Fitting a Thanksgiving meal into its postseason routine is nothing new for Southern Oregon University football. Neither is going on the road and shaming the NAIA rankings.

The fifth-ranked Raiders (11-0 overall) are set to appear in the NAIA Football Championship Series Quarterfinals for the fourth time in six years Saturday, visiting No. 4 Lindsey Wilson (Ky.) (11-0) for an 11 a.m. Pacific Time kickoff at Blue Raider Stadium. It'll be the first playoff game between two undefeated teams since the 2013 title game, and the first time two such teams have met in the quarterfinal round since 2009.

How They Got Here: Last Saturday at Raider Stadium, SOU improved to 7-0 all-time in the first round with a breezy 55-24 win against No. 13 Dickinson State (N.D.), the North Star Athletic Association champion. Tanner Trosin threw two of his four touchdown passes in the first six minutes of the game, SOU had a 31-3 lead midway through the second quarter, and the defense continued its dominant run with five takeaways. The Raiders reached the postseason by going 10-0 in the Frontier Conference – their perfect slate was the first in the FC since 2010 – which gave them one of 12 automatic bids in the 16-team field.

Lindsey Wilson, which didn't launch its program until 2010, got through the first round for the third time in four years by hanging on in a 63-49 shootout against No. 9 Southeastern (Fla.). On a day that featured 1,153 yards of total offense, the teams traded touchdowns until David Larson returned a kickoff 91 yards to break a 42-42 tie with 44 seconds left in the third quarter. Then, following a defensive stop, the Blue Raiders finally got some separation with an 11-play, 91-yard drive capped by one of Blake Ingleton's five rushing TDs. The game was a clash of opponents from the 20-team Mid-South Conference; LWC got there by winning the Bluegrass Division, and Southeastern did so by winning the Sun Division.

Playoff Picture: Host teams went 6-2 in the first round – they'd gone 23-1 in the previous three seasons – as 12th-ranked Georgetown (Ky.) and 10th-ranked Northwestern (Iowa) both pulled off upsets. Benedictine (Kan.), ranked No. 15, nearly joined the party at top-ranked Saint Francis (Ind.), but the defending champion Cougars outscored their visitors 20-6 in the second half for a 26-21 win.

In this week's other quarterfinal matchups, No. 10 Northwestern (Iowa) (10-1) visits No. 1 Saint Francis (Ind.) (11-0); No. 12 Georgetown (Ky.) (10-1) visits No. 2 Reinhardt (Ga.) (10-0); and No. 8 Saint Xavier (Ill.) (10-1) visits No. 3 Morningside (Iowa) (12-0). Matchups for the semifinals, to be played Dec. 2, will be announced late Saturday night, and the Dec. 16 title game will be played in Daytona Beach, Fla., for the fourth year in a row.

Series History: Saturday's matchup will be the first between SOU and LWC. It'll also be the first time LWC has met a Frontier opponent. SOU has previously played one game against a Mid-South team: Webber International (Fla.), which the Raiders defeated in Ashland, 15-10 on Sept. 24, 2011, for the late coach Craig Howard's first victory at SOU.

SOU Championship Series History: The Raiders are in the NAIA FCS for the seventh time overall and the sixth time since it went to a one-division, 16-team format in 1997. Last week they improved to 12-5 in the playoff and 6-1 at Raider Stadium. Before winning their first championship against Marian (Ind.) in 2014 and advancing to the final for a rematch the next year, they'd been 0-4 in the quarterfinals.

LWC Championship Series History: After going without a postseason appearance in the team's first four years of existence, the Blue Raiders are in the NAIA FCS for the fourth year in a row and seeking their first quarterfinal win. In the 2014 quarterfinals they were eliminated by Saint Xavier (Ill.) – which went on to lose to SOU in the semifinals – and in last year's quarterfinals they were eliminated by Baker (Kan.) – which went on to defeat Eastern Oregon in the semifinals. LWC is 3-0 on its home field in the postseason.

Playoff Quickies:
– Dating back to the 2012 NAIA FCS, home teams are 60-18 in the playoff. Southern Oregon has accounted for five of those road wins, Marian has another five, Eastern Oregon picked up two last year and no other team has more than one.
– Quarterfinal hosts are just 7-5 over the last three seasons.
– SOU – which has never been seeded higher than No. 5 in the playoff – has previously pulled off road upsets of two No. 1 teams (Carroll, 2014; Morningside, 2015), a No. 2 team (Baker, 2015), a No. 3 team (Saint Xavier, 2014), and a No. 8 team (Saint Ambrose, 2012).
– SOU's total of 630 yards of offense last week was its highest against an NAIA opponent since it put 691 yards on Kansas Wesleyan in the first round of the 2015 playoffs.
– Of the eight teams left standing, five have won titles before: SOU (2014), Saint Xavier (2011), Georgetown (1991-2000-01) and Northwestern (1973-83).
– The last time two undefeated teams met before the championship game was in the 2010 semifinals, when all four teams left had perfect records.

Coming out Swinging: The Raider defense has kept its opponents off the board on their opening drives in eight consecutive games, while the Raider offense has scored opening-drive touchdowns in four of the last five games and put opening-drive points on the board in seven games overall. SOU has outscored opponents by combined margins of 97-23 in the first quarter and 158-58 in the second. The result: SOU hasn't trailed on the scoreboard since the sixth game of the season – Oct. 14 at Eastern Oregon – when it overcame a 24-10 fourth-quarter deficit to win 31-27.

Deep Thoughts: The Raiders are up to 50 plays from scrimmage of 30 yards or more this season – 42 passing and eight rushing. In seven such plays last week against Dickinson, six different players were involved: Trosin completed long passes to Jason Shelly (50 yards), Parker Randle (43), Jordan Suell (42, 38) and Rey Vega (37); and Louis Macklin recorded a 43-yard rush and Trosin ran one for 30 yards. In 11 games the Raiders have logged 82 plays of 20-plus yards and their opponents have tallied 26.

The Trosin Arsenal: Tanner Trosin, the newly-minted Frontier Conference Offensive Player of the Year, is up to 7,479 career passing yards – the second-most in team history – and 1,533 in five postseason outings after accumulating a first-round high of 384. With 48 TD passes, he's now tied for third on SOU's all-time list with Chad Guthrie (1993-96) and four away from tying Dan Miles' (1964-67) career total. His 85 rushing yards last week also matched a season-high; it was the eighth time he's gone for 80-plus yards in his SOU career. Most striking is how those numbers have come together: He connected with 11 different receivers against the Blue Hawks, marking the fifth time this season he's gotten at least 10 involved. Just three times this year has he completed passes to fewer than nine targets.

Briefly:
– With a 5-1 advantage in takeaways last week, the Raiders are up to a 34-14 combined margin this season compared to a 31-18 disadvantage in 2016. During the 2015 postseason they had five takeaways in four games combined, and in 2014 they recorded eight of their 10 postseason takeaways in the title game.
– Oshay Dunmore – the first-round defensive player of the game – and AJ Cooper both picked up their fourth interceptions of the season last week. Since 2000, only three other Raider duos have recorded four picks in a season – Jaylenn Hart and Julius Rucker (2014), Matt Beam and Kellan Quick (2005), and Nathan Mart and Reavous Thomas (2000) being the others.
– SOU's banged-up defensive line – which has one starter left from its season-opening depth chart – has only been credited with one sack over the last three games, but it got a more spectacular highlight against DSU in the form of Josiah Maglente-Tonu's 21-yard interception return for a TD, the first for a Raider lineman in at least a decade. Each of SOU's last three interception returns for TDs have come in the postseason. (Rucker had one in the 2014 championship, and Heston Altenbach had one in the 2014 semifinals.)
– Running back Rey Vega's 152-yard, three-TD performance last week was his 10th game with 100-plus all-purpose yards in two years. He's hit 100 yards four times in the last five games after doing so once previously this season and is now averaging 5.3 yards per rush; entering the month of November, that number was 3.7. He's now scored nine TDs in SOU's last five games after finding the end zone twice through the first six.
– Marcus Montano hit field-goal attempts of 42 and 20 yards against DSU. Since missing the first two FG attempts of his postseason career in 2015, he's gone 5-of-6 in the playoffs while converting 22-of-23 point-after tries.
– Linebacker Devvon Gage and safety Keegan Lawrence have been the primary stoppers for an SOU run defense that is yielding 3.6 yards per carry. Gage has made 66 of his 84 tackles against the rush, and Lawrence has made 58 of his 83 on ball-carriers.

Coach-Speak: Raider head coach Charlie Hall, hired in March to succeed Howard, is the second coach in team history to start 11-0; Al Simpson's teams won 15 straight in 1946-47. Of the 14 other coaches in team history, no one else started 2-0. Nathan Chin, SOU's associate head coach, has now been on staff for 12 seasons and made six postseason appearances, more than anyone in team history.

About Lindsey Wilson:
– Chris Oliver has been the head coach at LWC since the program's launch, and in eight seasons he's put together a 63-28 record.
– The Blue Raiders this season have defeated five ranked opponents. Since 2014 they're 25-5 at home, including a 12-1 mark the last two years.
– SOU hasn't allowed an opponent to score 30 points this year, but the Blue Raiders haven't been held under 30 since last year's 42-27 quarterfinal loss to Baker. They're averaging 49.7 points, the fourth-most in the country.
– Dylan Beasley, a senior third-year starter at quarterback, has led LWC to the second-best pass efficiency in the NAIA. He's thrown 33 TDs with only three interceptions this season, and over LWC's last four games he's thrown for 14 TDs without a pick. Thirteen different players have been on the receiving end of his scoring throws.
– The Blue Raiders boast a 24-12 turnover margin thanks to 10 different players who have recorded interceptions. Led by sophomore Damani Jenkins' five sacks, they also have a 21-16 advantage in that department.
– Blake Ingleton, a 6-foot-1, 220-pound running back from Queens, N.Y., exploded for 241 rushing yards on a season-high 25 carries last week, though he hadn't amassed more than 57 yards in any of LWC's previous three games. He averages 6.7 yards per carry and is five away from hitting 1,000 yards for the season.