GAME 2 – SOU (0-1) vs. Willamette (1-1)
4 p.m. Saturday | Raider Stadium | Ashland, Oregon
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ASHLAND – The last time Southern Oregon defeated Willamette, current Raiders head coach Berk Brown was in his first season on staff and offensive coordinator Greg Stewart was in his final season in uniform, which is to say: it's been a while.

Matching up with the NCAA Division III-affiliated Bearcats (1-1) for the first time since 2011, SOU (0-1) will attempt to get Brown his first win in the team's 2023 Raider Stadium debut at 4 p.m. Saturday. The Raiders got the only bye on their calendar out of the way last week after opening with a non-conference loss at No. 8-ranked College of Idaho. The Bearcats are a team in flux. They started with a 24-21 win at La Verne (Calif.), after which they dismissed fifth-year head coach Isaac Parker and went on to take a 31-point loss at Lewis & Clark.

HEAD-TO-HEAD: The Raiders are 14-16 in the series against Willamette and, since getting their most recent win in 2007, have lost four matchups in a row. The teams were formerly both members of the NAIA's Columbia Football Association, meeting annually for conference games from 1985-94. The Bearcats left the CFA in 1996, advanced to the NAIA championship game in '97, and bolted for the NCAA in '98, but the teams continued to play regularly until SOU joined the Frontier Conference in 2012. The rivalry is renewed due in large part to the Frontier's new eight-game regular season format, which left the Raiders with more room for non-conference dates. The Bearcats last visited Ashland on Sept. 19, 2009, and left with a 22-15 victory. They're 5-8 all-time at Raider Stadium.

HOME HISTORY: The Raiders have won nine of their last 11 home openers, but Saturday marks their first non-conference regular season game in Ashland since 2011. SOU enters the matchup with an all-time record of 107-68 at Raider Stadium. From 2012-18, the Raiders went 30-4 at home. Since the start of 2019, they've gone 5-9, including a 1-4 mark last season. It won't get any easier this fall: Three of SOU's four Frontier home games will be against the conference's only NAIA Top 25 teams: No. 16 Montana Tech (Sept. 30), No. 10 Carroll (Oct. 28) and No. 8 College of Idaho (Nov. 11).

LAST TIME OUT: A final score of 42-16 left no hint of the Raiders' early dominance in their Sept. 2 debut at then-No. 12 College of Idaho, the four-time defending Frontier champions. Of the first 40 plays from scrimmage, the Raiders possessed the ball for 36 of them and had two field goals to show for back-to-back drives spanning 21 minutes combined. The Yotes broke through for their first TD with 45 seconds left in the first half, returned an interception for a TD moments later, and outscored SOU 28-7 following the break. C of I receiver Brock Richardson finished with 163 reception yards while the Raiders, playing without injured quarterback Matt Struck in the second half, totaled 260 yards of offense as a team. The win was the Yotes' eighth straight in the series. They'll be in Ashland for the Frontier regular season finale.

AROUND THE FRONTIER: The FC's national standing got a welcome boost last week from some productive non-conference outings. In Helena, Mont., Carroll upset then-No. 14 St. Thomas (Fla.) 26-23 with a safety and a touchdown in the game's final minutes. Meanwhile, Montana Tech held on for a 37-29 road win over NCAA Div. II power Central Washington. In the first conference game of the season, a tipped 25-yard TD reception as time expired gave College of Idaho a 37-35 win against Montana Western in Caldwell. Three Frontier counters are on tap this week, a slate highlighted by Carroll's visit to Rocky Mountain. SOU travels to UMW next week for its conference opener.

BRIEFLY:

• After sitting out last season, senior running back Avery McCuaig provided a reminder in his first game back of the bruising dimension he adds. The Alberta product rushed 12 times for 65 yards at C of I with a long of 24 yards, averaging 5.4 per attempt. He's averaged 4.3 per attempt over six career games for the Raiders and gone for at least 54 yards all three games in which he's gotten 10 or more carries.
• Jackson Clemmer, SOU's 6-foot-6 tight end, scored the first touchdown of the season on a 64-yard reception and finished with four catches for 86 yards. Those totals were the highest for a Raider tight end since 2016, when Ben Bachman made six catches for 101 yards at UC Davis.
• SOU's new kicker, Brian Batres, made all three of his field-goal attempts in his debut, including a 48-yarder that matched the sixth longest in Raider history. The others were from 34 and 23 yards deep.
• Jordan Faifai – who went 17-13 as a true freshman member of the SOU wrestling team last season – became the first Raider to collect an interception in his debut since Monti Wilson in 2012 by picking off Andy Peters on C of I's first drive of the third quarter.
• The Week 1 loss proved to be as costly on the injury front as on the scoreboard. Right guard Nick Espinoza and center Gustavo Mendez are no longer listed on the depth chart, and neither is linebacker Ty Glumbik, the Raiders' second leading tackler last year among returning players. Senior quarterback Matt Struck's injury was less serious: he did not appear in the second half after completing 13-of-16 pass attempts for 95 yards in the first, but is listed as the starter again this week.
• The Raiders were held without a sack at C of I for the first time in 14 games dating back to 2021. Alejandro Sanchez enters the week with 12 career sacks and Noah Turnbull has six.

MORE ON WILLAMETTE:

• Tim Rude, in his third year on staff, was named interim coach of the Bearcats ahead of their second outing. They haven't won more than two games since 2016, and their last winning season was nine years ago.
• Junior transfer Gabriel Herrera is their go-to at running back. He rushed 22 times for 132 yards in the win at La Verne, and got the ball 22 more times for 69 yards in the 38-7 loss to Lewis & Clark. Last year at Foothill College (Calif.), he averaged 6.9 yards per rush.
• The Bearcats start a true freshman quarterback, Micah Ho'Omanawanui. He's completed 22-of-49 attempts for three touchdowns, four interceptions and an average of 4.8 yards per pass.
• They're coming off a 2-8 campaign in which they surrendered 36.5 points and 424 yards per game, and went winless in the Northwest Conference for the fifth consecutive season.
• Junior defensive back Hogan Smith is their top returner on that side of the ball. He accumulated 52 tackles in 2022.