WAYNE, Neb.- Football season is back here at Wayne, and after a 7-4 season last year, expectations are high.

Before the Wildcats reignite their rivalry against the University of Nebraska Kearney on August 28th, junior defensive end Carter Sitzman has recently earned South Division pre-season defensive player of the year in a NSIC coaches poll. Sitzman was honored by the award, but Sitzman's goal isn’t about awards, but more wins for the Wildcats.

“The culture at Wayne back in the day, seven wins was amazing, but now it's kinda like, we were almost a little disappointed last year, and all I know is that 7 wins is pretty disappointing,” said Sitzman. “That were kinda striving to be the best version of ourselves, and I don’t know we have a lot of wins coming for the cats this year, that’s all I’ll say.”  

After losing players due to graduation and the transfer portal, Wildcat and Head Coach Logan Masters' goal heading into his 4th season is to make sure the team bonds together as one

“We lost a good chunk of our seniors, so the big emphasis was becoming a team,” said coach Masters.” I think in football, becoming a team, being connected is very important, so that’s been our goal here through January, through the summer, now here through fall camp.”   

Junior running back Dawson Forgy last season fractured his foot and was sidelined. This year, Forgy is happy to be back on the field competing with his team. 

“But we have so many new guys, and we got a lot of guys with a lot of passion that love football here,” said Forgy. “ So I think that’s the biggest thing, is that we made a turn in the right direction of who we have here. We got guys that really love football, and you can tell with this team a lot of us are really close, it feels like a family right now.”

The wildcats are set to play against the Lopers for the first time since 2011.