Entering his ninth season as offensive coordinator in 2019, Ken Fasnacht is as responsible as anyone for the exciting brand of fast-paced and high-scoring football that Southern Oregon fans have grown accustomed to in recent years.
Since Fasnacht joined the staff in 2011 as coordinator and quarterbacks coach, the Raiders have broken every school record for scoring, yardage, passing and receiving. The 2012-15 seasons stand as the top four in team history in terms of scoring and total offense, and the 2013 team broke a then-collegiate record for all levels by averaging 642 yards per game.
Since joining the Frontier in 2012, the Raiders have averaged 42 points and over 525 yards per game. They led the NAIA in both categories in 2012 and ’13, and ranked second in ’14. In five of the last seven seasons, they've ranked top-five in passing offense.
Fasnacht, a product of Orange Park, Florida, was voted Football Scoop’s 2014 NAIA Coordinator of the Year after engineering the offense that led SOU to its first national championship. The award came after SOU established a new NAIA Championship Series record by posting 206 total points in four games on an average of 584.5 yards. By halftime of their 55-31 win over Marian (Ind.) in the title game, the Raiders had already scored 38 points.
Fasnacht’s pupil, quarterback Austin Dodge, that year broke nearly every major NAIA passing record, including career touchdown passes (154) and career passing yardage (17,250). Dodge, who was a freshman during Fasnacht’s first season at SOU, ended up a three-time Frontier Conference offensive player of the year and the Raiders’ first ever NAIA player of the year.
With Dodge gone in 2015, the Raiders hardly skipped a beat offensively as they returned to the NAIA title game: Their average rushing yardage (215) was the highest at SOU in 12 years despite the absence of a single all-conference running back, and first-year quarterback Tanner Trosin maintained a completion percentage of 64.
In 2017, Trosin was named the Frontier Conference Offensive Player of the Year.
When Fasnacht was hired at SOU by the late head coach Craig Howard prior to Howard's first season, the two were no strangers to working with each other. Fasnacht was the offensive coordinator for Howard at both Nease High School and Columbia High School in Florida, and also spent a year at Orange Park High School in 2007 as offensive coordinator. Prior to his coaching career, he spent time as a motivational speaker. His collegiate playing days were spent at Gardner-Webb (N.C.) and Valdosta State (Ga.).
His wife, Haley Jones Fasnacht, gave birth to their first child, Kolton, in 2015. At 4 months old, Kolton was lost to SIDS. The Fasnachts welcomed another son, Kash, in the fall of 2016.