EUGENE — Ron Gould will return to a familiar place and reunite with some longtime friends this afternoon.

He will also run into an old nemesis.

The UC Davis football coach is familiar with new Oregon quarterback Dakota Prukop after he led Montana State to a 77-37 win over Gould’s Aggies in 2014. Then a sophomore, Prukop passed for 361 yards and four touchdowns while running for 148 yards and two scores.

“I want to see if we can find a way to have that young man take a game off,” Gould joked. “Just relax and have a Coke and a smile on the sideline. The first opportunity we had to see him was not pretty.”

Gould, however, does expect some pleasant memories when he returns to Autzen Stadium to face Oregon. He finished his playing days as a cornerback for the Ducks in 1987 and began his coaching career as a graduate assistant with the program in 1990 and 1991.

Gould will stand across the sideline from Oregon running backs coach Gary Campbell, who mentored him as a grad assistant. He also plans to see Anthony Newman, who was part of the starting Oregon secondary with Gould, Thom Kaumeyer and Brett Young.

“I had a great mentor in coach Campbell,” Gould said. “I’m sure there will be a lot of former Ducks there, and I know Anthony will be there, but this is a business trip. I hope to have the chance to return over the summer and catch up with some buddies.”

Gould did not set up the game as a homecoming but instead found it on the schedule when he was hired in 2013.

“It is really not about me, it is about our team,” said Gould, who hired former Oregon defensive coordinator Bob Foster as a consultant in the spring. “Several members of my staff have been there and some of them have not. I want to make sure we know it is not about Ron Gould, it is about the two teams that are going to play.”

Despite his previous success against the Aggies, Prukop is still looking for them to challenge the Ducks.

“They’re going to come out and they’re going to be looking for an upset,” Prukop said. “This team isn’t going to lay down. The FCS, the level of play isn’t that big of a difference in my opinion.”

Gould returns as a heavy underdog with UC Davis, an FCS program that went 2-9 last season and is picked to finish last in the Big Sky Conference this season when it opens against the 24th-ranked Ducks.

“We talk about trying to redefine our best, that is one thing that is real important to us,” Gould said. “It is not who we play but how we play and as long as we put our best out there, we will let the results take care of themselves. That is all I can ask of the players.”

Gould returned to Autzen a few times as the running backs coach at Cal for 16 seasons, a job in which he passed along some of the lessons learned from Campbell to Marshawn Lynch, C.J. Anderson and Jahvid Best.

“I was fortunate to get good backs at Cal and that made it easy for me to coach them and push them,” Gould said.

The Bears went 4-9 against Oregon during Gould’s time on the staff, including a 1-5 record at Autzen.

“We can’t be distracted by the noise or fans or anything like that,” he said. “It will be great for the players to see an educated fan base that is quiet when it is supposed to and loud when it is supposed to. It is one of the loudest stadiums in the country. Once we get in the game, then we will know how we handle that but we have done all we can until that point.”

Gould played only one season for Rich Brooks at Oregon after spending two years in junior college and one at Wichita State before it shut down the football program before his senior season. He returned to Oregon as a grad assistant in 1990 and spent one season working with the offense and one on defense before getting his first full-time coaching job at Portland State.

“I always had a great fondness for coach Brooks, I loved his toughness and grit,” Gould said. “He was a blue-collar coach, and I loved that he cared about his players and pushed us to become men. I have a lot of great memories there as a player and a coach.”

Oregon went 6-5 during Gould’s one season on the field and then reached the Freedom Bowl in his first season as a grad assistant.

“The program has come a long way, but I am not surprised,” Gould said. “Back when coach Brooks was there I knew big things were on the horizon. Then you saw what coach (Mike) Bellotti did and now (Mark) Helfrich. It is exciting because I went to school there, but I know we are trying to get things done at UC Davis, and that is what I am focused on.”