NAIA TOP 25

ASHLAND – The Southern Oregon University football team took the long road back to the NAIA Top 25 poll, but, riding a four-game winning streak and the nation's top offense, finally returned Monday at No. 22.

The journey has been an uphill one after the Raiders (4-3 overall, 4-2 Frontier Conference) lost their first three games of the season. Defeating their last four opponents by an average of 38 points, however, pushed their case over the top.

Their lead was as big as 48 points during Saturday's 55-28 win over Montana State-Northern, which was ranked 18^th at the time but omitted from this week's rankings entirely.

The Frontier's two first-place teams, Carroll College and Rocky Mountain, came in at Nos. 7 and 10 in the poll. They lead SOU by one game in the standings.

SOU was 14^th in the preseason poll but dropped out of the first poll of the regular season.

Last year, the Raiders were 10^th with a record of 8-2 when they received an at-large bid to the 16-team NAIA Championship Series.

Ten automatic bids are awarded to conference champions, and the other six go to the next-highest ranked teams. Bethel (Iowa) had the lowest ranking of any team that got in last year at 18^th and was 8-3.

Four games remain on SOU's regular season schedule, including a Nov. 2 date at Carroll in Helena, Mont. The Raiders will be going for their 11^th straight win within the confines of Raider Stadium at 1 p.m. on Saturday when they host Montana Western, which upset them 38-34 in the second week of the season.

Morningside (Iowa) – the team that defeated SOU in overtime of the 2012 national quarterfinals – topped the rankings for the seventh straight week.