Speaker 1: It's been a great year for Long Horn football this year,
Speaker 1: and the guy that has called every single play and
Speaker 1: by the way, has kept me company a lot. On
Speaker 1: Saturday afternoons and Saturday evenings, the voice of the long Horns,
Speaker 1: the one and only Craig Wait, joins us.
Speaker 2: Good morning, Craig, Good morning, And it begs the eternal question,
Speaker 2: what in the world are you doing with your saturdays otherwise?
Speaker 1: But you know, I've found myself recently taking you on
Speaker 1: my walks On Saturday. I walk about for about an
Speaker 1: hour and I am streaming you on the iHeartRadio app
Speaker 1: and listening to the football games. And as I'm making
Speaker 1: my way through the Brushy Creek Trail, I feel like
Speaker 1: I'm right there sitting at dk R with the game.
Speaker 1: I love listening to sports on the radio. I love it.
Speaker 1: I like watching on TV, too, but I just think
Speaker 1: radio is just different.
Speaker 3: And I'm netflix guy for football.
Speaker 2: And I will say this, I've been blessed enough and
Speaker 2: fortunate enough to where I do quite a bit of both,
Speaker 2: mainly radio, but the high school football state championships on
Speaker 2: television and done some other television assignments. A Cowboys preseason game,
Speaker 2: I've done several other things. But I'm with you, Sandy,
Speaker 2: and I think we're all kind of in agreement with this,
Speaker 2: since we're all kind of you know, radio hanks and
Speaker 2: have been for some time that there is something extra
Speaker 2: special about the radio. We do have more of a canvas,
Speaker 2: and we are really responsible for painting a proper picture
Speaker 2: on that TV that you know, there are pictures to
Speaker 2: go with it, so you have to kind of pick
Speaker 2: your spots and you don't have to overtalk it unless,
Speaker 2: of course, it's a simulcast, and we've had that with
Speaker 2: some early season Texas basketball games. And I'll say that
Speaker 2: up front. You know, we walcome the simulcast of our
Speaker 2: radio call, so people won't say, you know, why in
Speaker 2: the hell is he talking so much? I mean, that's
Speaker 2: an eternal question about me anyway, But especially with regard
Speaker 2: to a game, and unless it's a simulcas as, television
Speaker 2: is different than radio, but on radio you have to
Speaker 2: be the eyes of the years. You have to do
Speaker 2: the proper things to make sure people understand left from
Speaker 2: right and what color of the uniforms, and how the
Speaker 2: stadium looks and north to south and things like that.
Speaker 2: Those are all part of the responsibility.
Speaker 1: I think I love it when you say left to
Speaker 1: right on your radio dial. Okay, now I can picture
Speaker 1: which way the Longhorns are going. I got that. You
Speaker 1: guys are also on TV. Now we got the local call.
Speaker 1: I saw this weekend on one of the ESPN channels.
Speaker 1: I think you can listen to Craig call on the
Speaker 1: radio on television. That's really cool. Is that new?
Speaker 2: It's been around a few years, but the ESPN has
Speaker 2: put this in on their coverage of the telecast in
Speaker 2: the college football Playoff now. Of course, until this year,
Speaker 2: it was a four team playoff for the prior nine seasons,
Speaker 2: so it was in the semifinals and it was up
Speaker 2: there last year when Texas played in the Sugar bubl
Speaker 2: they'll do is in addition to their regular feed, and
Speaker 2: they have about six or seven feeds, because they realize
Speaker 2: a lot of people are dialed into that. So instead
Speaker 2: of putting on on one of their other channels, you
Speaker 2: know whatever, bowling or or or you know what, the
Speaker 2: dog jumping competitions and things like that, poker shows, things
Speaker 2: like that, they realized they could give fans a lot
Speaker 2: of different angles. So what they'll do is they'll have
Speaker 2: the regular telecast, and they'll have a feed in Spanish.
Speaker 2: They'll also have what they call a skycam look and
Speaker 2: you're looking from up top of the skycam. They'll have
Speaker 2: an All twenty two. They'll have a room with a
Speaker 2: bunch of coaches sitting around talking about it throughout the
Speaker 2: course of the game. But one of the things they
Speaker 2: provide is they feed and they call it the hometown
Speaker 2: radio broadcast, so they'll have the broadcast feeds of both
Speaker 2: of the competing team's radio network. Now sometimes, like they
Speaker 2: did last week, they pair it like with a skycam.
Speaker 2: Add somebody you know text me and say, hey, I
Speaker 2: really enjoyed you broadcast, but looking at it from the
Speaker 2: skycap made me dizzy, and I get that. But they
Speaker 2: also made it available i think on ESPN Plus to
Speaker 2: where you get the regular feed with our broadcast. So
Speaker 2: it's a service and it's nice of ESPN to do
Speaker 2: that because they know there's a lot of people out
Speaker 2: there who probably want to listen to their radio guy
Speaker 2: who's been calling it all year long and for several years,
Speaker 2: and so they provide that for both teams, which I
Speaker 2: think is a good thing.
Speaker 1: Craig Way is our guest the voice of the Longhorns.
Speaker 1: Longhorns playing Saturday in the Cotton Bowl at AT and
Speaker 1: T Stadium in Arlington against Ohio State. Craig thanks again
Speaker 1: for taking the time to visit with you, JB. I
Speaker 1: feel like I'm hogging all this. You got something for
Speaker 1: crag I do.
Speaker 3: I'd love to get you because you've been covering long
Speaker 3: Horn football for a long time, and then so much
Speaker 3: has changed in the last year SCC for the Longhorns,
Speaker 3: the transfer portal nil and it's funny I forgot you
Speaker 3: covered like state championship high school too.
Speaker 2: I watched that.
Speaker 4: I watched some of that game, and it looked like
Speaker 4: college football.
Speaker 3: I watched college football.
Speaker 1: It looks like pro football.
Speaker 3: Pro football is in the stratosphere right now.
Speaker 4: But give me your overall thoughts on this status in
Speaker 4: the state of Longhorn football in this new era, because
Speaker 4: you've been there when it was I mean, I was
Speaker 4: there dog days of the eighties and then you know,
Speaker 4: it was such a heyday, the Vince Young, mac Brown,
Speaker 4: Colt McCoy era, then a slump for a decade and
Speaker 4: this is like on a level we've never seen.
Speaker 2: I agree with you at JB. On a lot of levels.
Speaker 2: My first year on the network was nineteen eighty eight,
Speaker 2: when I was the studio anchor for four seasons on
Speaker 2: the old Southwest Conference Radio network when they used to
Speaker 2: bring in all the broadcast into one studio in Dallas,
Speaker 2: when I was living and working in Dallas at the time,
Speaker 2: And my first season in the booth was nineteen ninety two.
Speaker 2: Is the analyst to Bill Shooning. We did ten football
Speaker 2: and nine basketball seasons together before he left to become
Speaker 2: the play by play voice of the Spurs. So I
Speaker 2: moved over to the play by play in the O
Speaker 2: one o two season and during that time, that's my
Speaker 2: twenty fourth year in the play by play role. I've
Speaker 2: seen a lot of change with it. I mean, you
Speaker 2: go all the way back and Matt Brown was the
Speaker 2: coach then, and you mentioned Vince Young. In the Great Run,
Speaker 2: they had ten consecutive seasons of nine or more wins.
Speaker 2: They had nine consecutive seasons of ten or more, and
Speaker 2: there was a complacency there from the fan base. There
Speaker 2: invariably is no matter how good or how bad you are,
Speaker 2: but there was. And then when the Long Orange hit
Speaker 2: lean times, it was kind of tough there was basically
Speaker 2: a decade where they just, you know it, really struggled
Speaker 2: to get back up there. And then they had a
Speaker 2: few years where they were winning and getting the bowl games,
Speaker 2: but there didn't seem to be any real heavy duty
Speaker 2: upward mobility of the program. And it took Sark, I think,
Speaker 2: coming in three years ago, going up four years ago
Speaker 2: to really make this work where we just passed the
Speaker 2: four year anniversary when he was actually announced when he
Speaker 2: came in, and I think what Sark has brought to
Speaker 2: the program is because he spent time in the NFL,
Speaker 2: because he spent time with the program like Alabama, understanding
Speaker 2: to your point how it he has kind of elevated
Speaker 2: to an almost NFL style level, and he's kind of
Speaker 2: brought that in terms of what his offensive playbook is,
Speaker 2: what the program's expectations are. You mentioned nil and transfer portal,
Speaker 2: and you know, with the additional money that goes into
Speaker 2: it and things of that nature, all of that is
Speaker 2: really really big. I think that what he's done is
Speaker 2: the broadened what the scope of long Horn football is
Speaker 2: supposed to be all about. And now now in this
Speaker 2: expanded playoff, think about it, Texas is about to play
Speaker 2: its sixteenth game for the season. They've never done that before.
Speaker 2: They've never won more than thirteen games, and that was
Speaker 2: the national championship year of five in the year they
Speaker 2: lost Alabama in the championship game, you know nine, they
Speaker 2: won thirteen each of those. They won thirteen this year
Speaker 2: and they're trying to get to a program record fourteenth
Speaker 2: And even if they get that, they only won the
Speaker 2: national title yet though, I have one more game. So
Speaker 2: it is a different world in college football, and I
Speaker 2: think Sark has proven to be the guy to lead
Speaker 2: them into that next generation of what college football was
Speaker 2: all about.
Speaker 1: Craig Way is our guest. We're gonna take a quick
Speaker 1: break and come back with more with Craig in just
Speaker 1: a moment. But during the break, Craig, I want you
Speaker 1: to ask you a question. I want you to think
Speaker 1: about it. If you had to do one of the
Speaker 1: Longhorned sports, football, basketball, or baseball for free, which one
Speaker 1: would you do? Okay, I hope none, But if you
Speaker 1: had to, which one would you do for free? And Tricia,
Speaker 1: you got to jump in here and have something for Craig,
Speaker 1: So think about a question. Okay, we don't want to
Speaker 1: leave you out all right, stay with us more with
Speaker 1: Craig Way, the voice of the Longhorns, coming up on
Speaker 1: Austin's eighties station, What three point one