The UW Oshkosh football team will look to contend for the Wisconsin Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (WIAC) title during the 2022 season, which begins Saturday at J.J. Keller Field at Titan Stadium.

The Titans, currently ranked 19 in the nation by d3football.com, hope to bounce back after a disappointing 2021 season where they finished fourth in the WIAC with a 6-3 overall record.

Head coach Peter Jennings said at the end of the day, UWO football will continue to be blue collar tough.

“We are going to outwork opponents and we are going to be the best practiced team in America,” he said. “That is our goal, our guys will repeat it to you, and if we’re the best practiced team in America, we will turn some heads in the WIAC.”

Junior quarterback Kobe Berghammer will lead the Titan offense this season in his third year as a starter. Berghammer, who currently sits ninth all time for UWO passing yards, threw for over 1,600 yards and 19 touchdowns with only four interceptions last season.

Berghammer’s favorite target, junior wideout Tony Steger, will hope to have another career season after he led the team in receptions (28), receiving yards (618) and receiving touchdowns (6) last year.

On the defensive side of the ball, Carson Raddatz, Tory Jandrin, Kyle Scharenbroch and Brandon Kolgen hopeto have another dominant season on the field.

Raddatz, a sophomore defensive back, led the Titans in tackles last year with 90 in nine games.

Jandrin, a junior linebacker, had the second most tackles (65), tackles for loss (6.5) and sacks (2.5) last season for UWO.

Jandrin said he used the disappointing finish from last season as motivation for the upcoming season.

“I don’t think that anybody was happy with how we finished the season last year,” he said. “Everyone wants to be at the top of the podium and we used that year to get better and better.”

Scharenbroch, a senior defensive back, had the most broken up passes (6), the third most tackles (60) and was one of two Titans to have both an interception and a fumble recovery last year.

Kolgen, a sophomore defensive lineman, led UWO in sacks (6.5) and tackles for loss (11.5) during the 2021 season.

Jennings said that the team had a great offseason even through the ups and downs of the head coaching search.

“The beauty of coming to a place like Oshkosh and taking over this program is that there’s a strong culture in place and that’s really exciting,” he said.

Since the arrival of Jennings, Oshkosh has added new members to their coaching staff during the offseason including offensive coordinator Rich Worsell, special teams coordinator Matt Ellis and wide receivers coach Treylon Anderson. The Titans also welcomed the 2012 Division III National Player of the Year, Nate Wara, to the coaching staff as a tight ends coach.

Worsell, who hails from the United Kingdom, joins UWO from the University of Akron where he served as the director of football research and analytics for the past three seasons, scouting every opponent the Zips faced.

Prior to his time with Akron, Worsell was the offensive coordinator and assistant head football coach at the University of La Verne from 2011-18. In 2015, he helped lead the Leopards to their first conference championship in 30 years  while boasting one of the top offenses in the nation by averaging 37 points a game.

The Titans will play East Texas Baptist University in UWO’s home opener on Sept. 3 at 1 p.m. at J.J. Keller Field at Titan Stadium. The game will feature a special presentation for the senior day and the first appearance of the Titan Thunder marching band.