Longhorn radio announcers reflect on 'leaning out the window' during championship, 22 seasons together

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AUSTIN (KXAN) — For the 22nd consecutive year, Texas Longhorns play-by-play announcer Craig Way and analyst Roger Wallace will be on the call together when the Longhorns kick off the 2025 home schedule Saturday against San Jose State.

Way’s career calling Texas Athletics goes back even further than the current partnership – 38 seasons in total – though neither Way nor Wallace started in the position they currently hold.

Way was a studio and color analyst before being promoted to play-by-play in 2002. Wallace started as a sideline reporter that same year, before being promoted to analyst in 2011. Wallace has been KXAN’s sports director since 1995.

After the tough loss at Ohio State last weekend, both Wallace and Way said they still feel optimistic about the season.

Ahead of Saturday, the two iconic Longhorn voices talked about working together, their most memorable call, and how they see this season playing out.

This interview has been lightly edited for clarity and brevity.

Tom Miller: What does it mean to be the voices of the University of Texas?

Craig Way: It’s a responsibility certainly not to be taken lightly. I always looked at the play-by-play role as a placeholder. If you’re in an elected office or something like that, you have a responsibility to carry out the duties, to do it in a way that folks can understand what happened in the play. Yes, anybody who listens to us knows who we would like to see win the game, but I don’t think it has to go overboard to the point where you lose complete objectivity.

Roger Wallace: It’s awesome when you put it in those terms. I try not to think about how big it is. We’ve been fortunate in our time, there haven’t been many down seasons. There have been some, but you still have to do the same job. When they’re losing or when Texas is winning, whether it’s an exciting game or a blow, you can never throw in the towel. If Team X makes a great play, they’re the better team, you certainly acknowledge that. Yeah, there’s no secret who we want to win. I mean, you know, where are the voices of the Longhorns.

Tom: Can you both talk about the amount of work that goes into preparing for a broadcast?

Craig: What I have found over the years is that there’s some every day. Every day we get the game notes from each side. It takes a while in the construction of the actual spotting broadcast charts with KXAN’s own Andy Way (Craig’s son) doing the actual technical work. Then there’s a lot of reading and studying of game notes. There’s (Steve Sarkisian’s) show to do in the middle of the week, and then Roger has his own interview with Sark as well. Then I do a daily talk show as well. So all of that goes into the preparation for the game broadcast.

Roger: I build my own charts, and that gets me in the groove of it. I look at some trends on what’s going on, but then also it’s a lot of reaction. The one thing we’re both careful of is we don’t want to just jam information, information, information, because we did all this preparation. Find a place to inject that when it’s appropriate, and not just overload with stories and things like that. A lot of what I do during the game is I’ll look at some numbers that aren’t the obvious numbers to try to get a feel for what’s going on in the game, maybe beyond just the obvious score, and either the struggles or the success that’s going on.

Tom: You both were lucky enough to call a national championship. Is that the call that stands out most, that fans want to talk to you about?

Craig: We get a lot of questions about the fourth and five run for Vince Young and the Rose Bowl. What isn’t known, at least not widely known, is that the radio booths for the two institutions are all the way down at the end of the press box. Of course, Vince (Young’s) run was all the way at the other end. So basically, I’m leaning out the window going, ‘fourth and five from the USC eight. Vince from the shotgun has the snap,’ leaning out to see to make the call. Sometimes we have to do that. There are some interesting configurations in the broadcast booths.

Roger: I was lucky enough Vince ran right by me. I was in the mass. If you ever watch that play, it’s just a sea of humanity on that sideline. I had nudged my way into the front and he ran right by me for the touchdown.

Tom: You both are back from Ohio State after last weekend. What were your impressions of how the Longhorns played?

Roger: I hate to say some of it was predictable, but you knew Ohio State had a great defense, and you knew that Arch (Manning) was making his first road start. It was more of an offensive struggle than people thought, but I don’t think anybody thought this was going to be a shootout. I don’t think anybody needs to swing that pendulum from Heisman favorite to can’t get the job done.

Craig: Fans are really good at that, and some media as well. I think Sark made a very good point in the press conference about how Arch will be fine, but that he needs to do a better job of taking the easier plays that are there for him. Whether it’s a check-down pass or even tucking it in and running, and that will come with time. Folks got pretty excited, and maybe out in front of their skis a little bit on, on what they expected for Arch, based on the fact that he had two starts filling in for an injured Quinn Ewers last year and showed some dynamic moves with his legs. Ohio State has an outstanding defense. We may see another couple of defenses that are that good, Oklahoma’s is good, Georgia’s is good, but I don’t know that they would be that much better than what Texas encountered last Saturday.

Tom: With the caveat that you are the radio announcers for the University of Texas, do you see the Longhorns bouncing back this season?

Craig: I do. Obviously, these next three games are all winnable non-conference games, but even once they get back in conference play, I think they’ll be all right. There’s some tough road environments ahead of them. The first conference came in Gainesville, Florida, against Florida. They got to go to Georgia. There are some other road environments they’ll have to deal with. Oklahoma, as I like to say, is what it is, there with the Red River rivalry in Dallas. They know the things they’ve got to correct. There’s that old football saying that a team most improves from week one to week two.

Roger: It does close the window for the margin for error, because now you have a loss. Those committees are human, even though they say, ‘Well, it’s a good loss, on the road, highly ranked team.’ If you get to the SEC title game, you’re in the playoff almost certainly. If you don’t, and you’re sitting there with three losses, then you’re nervous on Selection Sunday. This team can bounce back, and they’ve got a tough schedule, and if they navigate this schedule, there will be some great wins along the way.

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