ASHLAND – A highly-motivated Southern Oregon University football team has gotten back to work with 73 returning players ready to rebound from last fall. The Raiders' offseason practice schedule culminates with their annual spring game at 6 p.m. Friday.

Admission is free for all fans. The game will feature an offense-versus defense format with two halves, including situational play in the first and an open scrimmage in the second.

STAFF NOTES: Berk Brown, the 2024 AFCA-NAIA West Region Coach of the Year, will enter his fourth season as SOU's head coach in 2026. It'll be the first with a few significant shakeups at the top of his staff after he added former Eastern Oregon head coach Tim Camp, promoted Tim Souza to offensive coordinator, and lost defensive coordinator Tyler Stinn to Central Washington.

Camp joined the Raiders this winter as an associate head coach and offensive line coach. He spent the last 18 seasons at Eastern Oregon and was a thorn in SOU's side for many of those, winning seven of his 11 games at Raider Stadium after SOU joined the Frontier Conference in 2012. He compiled 91 victories with the Mountaineers, produced seven Frontier Players of the Year, and made the deepest run in school history to the NAIA semifinals in 2016. A four-year starting offensive lineman at Oregon State in his playing days, Camp's experience in the Frontier is unmatched.

"Coach Camp brings championship-level leadership and decades of collegiate experience to SOU," Brown said. "His teams consistently reflect his commitment to excellence on and off the field. His experience building physical, disciplined offensive lines and winning in the Frontier will have an immediate impact on our program, and his standards and belief in team-first football directly reinforce our core values and culture."

Souza joined SOU in 2024 as the offensive line coach and started 2025 as the run-game coordinator before taking over play-calling duties halfway through the season. From that point on, the Raiders had four of their five highest-scoring outputs of the season and averaged 31 points per game. It wasn't his first time in the OC position: Prior to arriving in Ashland, he held that role at Rocky Mountain High School (Idaho) for three consecutive teams that went undefeated in conference play and two that made runs to the Class 5A state title.

"Coach Souza has proven himself as a dynamic offensive leader and developer of players at every level," Brown said. "He sparked immediate improvement in scoring and overall production when he took over last season, and his background in kinesiology, strength and conditioning and player development aligns perfectly with our emphasis on effort, enthusiasm and execution. He understands our system, our players, and our WE culture, and his leadership will be instrumental as we continue building an offense capable of competing for – and winning – a Frontier Conference championship."

The defensive coordinator position remains vacant for now after Stinn left to take the same job at Central Washington in late March. He had three excellent seasons with the Raiders, helping them rank top-five nationally in sacks back-to-back seasons and delivering their first Frontier Defensive Player of the Year in Noah Turnbull. They limited opponents to 19 points per game in 2023, 19.5 in 2024, and 23.2 in 2025.

WHO'S BACK: Brown announced a hefty 44-person initial recruiting class in the first week of February, but the Raiders already have a solid foundation in place that will benefit greatly from getting back to full strength.

Notably, seven of the 11 players who were part of the offense's starting group by the end of the season are set to return – and that's not including All-America running back Gunner Yates, who will be back as a junior this fall after missing most of 2025 with an injury. Dom Montiel – the Oregon State transfer who ranked second among Frontier quarterbacks at 261 passing yards per game last year – will be a second-year starter, and All-Frontier running back Fresh Ison has one more season of eligibility after coming to SOU as a graduate transfer. They'll both get a major boost from a more seasoned offensive line, which returns four starters. Snakebitten by injuries early in 2025, that unit had Reegan Dunten and Jack Banta starting on the right side as true freshmen by the end of the fall.

Likewise, the defense also has seven starters and a couple more regulars back on the roster. The group is headlined by All-Frontier selection Raiden House (7.4 tackles/game) and Will Kanavalov Jr. in the linebacker spots. All-FC honorable mention recipient Bryson Kievit  (9 ½ TFL) returns on the line with Brandon Dominguez and Josue Santos, while Da'mon Carter, Isaiah Griffin and Trayton Futi are among the returners in the backfield.

2026 SCHEDULE: This fall's 10-game schedule is set, and it starts Aug. 29 with a non-conference game at Simpson (Calif.). The Raiders will have non-conference home games against Western Oregon (Sept. 5) and Dakota State (S.D.), and they'll host Simpson (Oct. 10), Arizona Christian (Oct. 24) and College of Idaho (Nov. 14) in Frontier West play. They'll be coming off a 3-7 campaign that included a 2-4 record in divisional action. They were at their best late in 2025 despite the results, falling by one point to No. 8-ranked Carroll (Mont.) and by three in the season finale at No. 13 College of Idaho, an eventual national semifinalist.