GAME 4 – No. 14 SOU (3-0) vs. No. 4 Montana Western (3-0)
1 p.m. Saturday | Ashland, Oregon | Raider Stadium
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OPERATION RED: The first 1,000 fans will receive free Operation Red t-shirts, presented by the Oregon Army National Guard

ASHLAND – The buzz that eluded Raider Stadium in recent years is back thanks to Southern Oregon's 3-0 start. The Raiders earned it last week with a top-10 win over College of Idaho. A similar outcome this week against No. 4 Montana Western would likely keep it around for the rest of the fall.

The defending Frontier Conference champion Bulldogs (3-0 overall, 1-0 FC) are in town Saturday for a 1 p.m. kickoff to help SOU (3-0, 0-0) launch its eight-game FC schedule. Like the Raiders, they defeated College of Idaho and were met with little resistance in their nonconference outings. They'll bring the reigning FC Offensive Player of the Year, junior quarterback Michael Palandri, to face a defense that was the circuit's best a season ago and has been stingy again early with seven takeaways. This will be the first time SOU faces consecutive top-10 opponents in the regular season since joining the Frontier 12 years ago.

NAIA TOP 25: The Raiders came in at No. 14 in Monday's NAIA Top 25. Two weeks after breaking into the rankings for the first time in five years, this week they got a bigger bump than any other team in the Top 25 by moving up six spots on the strength of their 45-27 upset of then-No. 9 College of Idaho. Elsewhere in the Frontier, Montana Western held at No. 4, Montana Tech jumped two spots to No. 10, and College of Idaho fell to No. 19. The pecking order could change in a hurry for all involved: C of I will try to avoid losing a third consecutive game Saturday when it hosts Montana Tech, and the Diggers follow that game by hosting SOU and traveling to Montana Western in back-to-back weeks.

HEAD-TO-HEAD: Montana Western is winless in eight all-time trips to Raider Stadium. SOU leads the overall series 11-5 and has a 10-5 record in Frontier contests. Last year's matchup – also a Frontier opener for SOU, played Sept. 23 in Dillon – went 24-23 to the Bulldogs, who scored two unanswered fourth-quarter touchdowns and finished a 94-yard go-ahead drive with 42 seconds left. Eli Nourse had the decisive score, finishing with 13 receptions for 169 yards. The Bulldogs have twice visited Ashland while attached to a Top 25 ranking. In their most recent visit, on Oct. 8, 2022, the Raiders won 49-14 as Christian Graney set a school record with 267 reception yards.

GUNNER'S GRAIL: Sophomore running back Gunner Yates was voted the NAIA Offensive Player of the Week after rushing 31 times for 293 yards and four touchdowns against College of Idaho. The Coquille product came up 55 yards short of the SOU single-game record established in 1998 by his father, Griff. With four minutes left in the third quarter, he was sitting on 272. By that point he had laid the groundwork for the upset with scores of 10, 40, 59 and 68 yards, becoming the fourth player in team history to register four rushing TDs in a game. Yates has compiled triple-digit yardage totals in back-to-back games and currently leads the NAIA in average rushing yardage (160.0), as well as yards per attempt (8.7) among those with at least 50 carries. His nine rushing TDs have him at No. 2 on that leaderboard, and this week he'll attempt to become the first Raider this century to log multiple rushing TDs in four consecutive games. He is already the first to do so in three straight since Mike Olson in 2012.

THE FRONTIER FILES: The Raiders made their Frontier debut in 2012 and have gone 67-41 in conference play since, giving them a higher winning percentage (.620) than any other FC team in that span. They've won two titles, in 2012 and '17, and finished among the top-two in six of 11 seasons. Last year's Raiders tied for fourth place at 5-3, their first winning record since 2018. Frontier teams have combined for 19 NAIA playoff wins since SOU joined, and the Raiders have accounted for 10 of those.

QUICK HITS:

• Though overshadowed by Yates' outburst, Blake Asciutto quietly completed 20-of-32 attempts for 313 yards last week, throwing TD passes of 28 yards to Jackson Clemmer and 44 yards to Brandon Barthel. It was the second week in a row that Asciutto went for 300-plus yards, doing so without a pick on both occasions. The performance made him the sixth player in team history to eclipse the 5,000-yard mark. Over his last five starts, Asciutto has completed 65% of his attempts while throwing for 12 touchdowns and two interceptions. In his only career start against UMW, he had a career-high 416 yards on 17-of-29 accuracy with four TDs during the 2022 season.
• Gabe Foster was voted the Frontier Defensive Player of the Week on Monday after delivering a strip sack that turned into a Raider takeaway, another assisted sack and another assisted tackle for a loss against C of I. The junior defensive end, a transfer from Butte College (Calif.), is boosting a line that has helped SOU generate nine sacks and limit opponents to 3.0 yards per rush. Foster leads SOU and ranks fourth in the Frontier with four total tackles for losses.
• Dating back to last season, the Raiders have allowed fewer than 30 points in nine consecutive games – an average of 14.1 during the stretch. Montana Western has gone over 30 points eight games in a row.
• Sawyer Cleveland matched a career-high with 137 reception yards against C of I, his third career 100-plus-yard game. The effort put him over 1,000 reception yards (1,008) in his four seasons at SOU. Two more Raiders, Jackson Clemmer and Adrik Lamar, have registered 100-yard games in their careers.
• The Raiders are attempting to start 4-0 for the eighth time in team history. They've done so three times since 2014, most recently in '18. Since the middle of last season, they've won eight of their last nine games.

HOME HISTORY: SOU owns a 112-70 all-time record at Raider Stadium, where the team has won three in a row dating back to last year. The Raiders are 37-17 as the designated home team in Frontier play, and they are 11-13 in such games against Top 25 opponents. They'd lost six in a row at home against Top 25 teams until ending last year with a win over then-No. 5 C of I and winning last week against then-No. 9 C of I.

MORE ON UMW:

• Ryan Nourse is in his 11th season as UMW's head coach with a 57-43 record. He was named the Frontier Coach of the Year in 2023 after leading the Bulldogs to their second title in three years. His teams are 0-2 in the NAIA postseason, losing in 2021 to No. 1 Lindsey Wilson (Ky.) and last year to College of Idaho, 49-42.
• There is no doubting the Bulldogs' offensive credentials. As a first-year starter in 2023, Michael Palandri earned an NAIA All-America third-team selection by throwing for 28 TDs compared to four interceptions and leading the Frontier with 269 passing yards per game. The junior is up to 368 yards per game on a 70% completion rate this year. His top target is Eli Nourse, the head coach's son, who was an All-FC first-team selection as a freshman and has gone over 100 yards in all three outings this season. Palandri has another, though, in Dylan Shipley, who has five 100-yard games and 10 touchdowns since the start of 2023. UMW's top rusher, Jake Humphrey, is averaging 6.4 yards per carry and went for 140 last week, working behind a pair of All-Frontier linemen in Rocco Beccari and Marcus Lombard.
• The defense is playing catch-up after losing three All-FC first-team performers. It surrendered 425 passing yards last week to Lewis & Clark, a middling NCAA Division III team, in a surprisingly tight 56-39 game that was within 10 points early in the fourth quarter. A week earlier, the Bulldogs held College of Idaho to 25 points but again gave up over 400 passing yards. They have produced 10 sacks, and Keegen Muffich leads the team with 21 total tackles.
• The Bulldogs have won eight consecutive Frontier games dating back to last year. Going back to 2022, they've won seven of their last eight road games.