Early beginnings through World War II: 1927–1945 |alt=A newspaper article describing the playing of a football game, 1900 The first iteration of football at Southern Oregon University came in 1896, when the school was a small
teachers' college known as Southern Oregon State Normal School (SONS). A student at the school, John Berry, set up a game between a group of people from the school and the Ashland Athletic Club, a team he set up for the match. In front of a large crowd, the SONS team won, 18–0. The sport developed at the school over the next few years. Games were played against nearby high schools, primarily
Ashland High School. In
1899 and
1900, contests were set up with the
University of Oregon Webfoots, a major regional team; SONS was
shut out in both contests. In 1900, a school professor organized the program and led it to relative success. However, funding for the school was stopped and it closed in 1909. giving them an
undefeated season and the unofficial title of Oregon teachers' colleges champion. In its second season, the college won only one match in a five-game schedule. However, more significant than that was the death of star
freshman Max Newsom; he died shortly after a game against
Oregon State JV from
cerebral hemorrhaging after collapsing on the field from injuries sustained making a
tackle. Newsom was the only Southern Oregon player ever killed during a game. The 1929 season saw slight improvement behind the efforts of Cylde Hines, SONS's first
African American student. While Hines was accepted by the school,
segregation and racist attitudes from opposing fans created problems for the team. The actions shown to the team by rival
Oregon Normal School led McNeal to suspend competition between the schools for two years. McNeal guided the program to winning seasons the following two years, including an unbeaten record in the latter. Before the start of the 1932 season, McNeal retired from the coaching position and took a job as professor of geography at the school. Despite Hobson's lack of experience, SONS was very successful in the 1932 season, losing just one game. The style of play under Hobson relied heavily on
trick plays to make up for the lack of proper coaching instruction. 18 years after Akins' last season, the Raiders experienced their first postseason, defeating
Central Washington in the first round of the NAIA playoffs and losing to
Mesa State in the quarterfinals. The Raiders found even greater success during the 2001 and 2002 seasons, reaching the quarterfinals of the NAIA playoffs each year. Although, in both years, Southern Oregon lost to
Carroll College, neither game was decided by more than four points.
Changing conferences: 1971–1998 Southern Oregon was seeking to move up to
NCAA Division II as the
Great Northwest Athletic Conference had only nine teams after
Seattle University moved up to Division I. The university is currently a member of the
NAIA and an affiliate member of the
Frontier Conference for football while being a member of the
Cascade Collegiate Conference for all other sports. It had been reported that the move to NCAA may take years to complete. However, the move never happened. In November 2010, Steve Helminiak was fired as head coach at Southern Oregon. He was replaced by Craig Howard, a high school football coach from Florida. Howard is best known for being the head coach of
Tim Tebow at Nease High School in
St Augustine, Florida.
Independent and Frontier Conference success: 1999–present In December 2014, the Raiders won the NAIA National Championship in
Daytona, Florida. The day before, Austin Dodge was named the 2014 NAIA Player of the Year. ==Conference affiliations==