Welcome to Bevo’s Fake Nuts, our often weekly column on the Texas Longhorns.
It’s time to change those radio presets, Central Texans.
Last week, Texas Athletics announced games will no longer be broadcast on The HORN, with Craig Way’s voice moving to KVET-AM 1300 and KVET-FM 98.1 beginning this fall. After eight years, the seas are changing again.
As Chris Del Conte pointed out, this is probably good for Texas fans. He said that more romantically than I can, though:
“The powerful signals of AM 1300 The Zone and 98.1 KVET will give our Longhorn faithful access to crystal clear radio game broadcasts from the northern tips of Williamson County down to the southern regions of Caldwell and Hays counties and out east to our friends in Bastrop and west into the beautiful Hill Country.”
(A little tip: If you’re ever looking to accelerate the pace and sweeten the emotion in a written or spoken work, just start listing locations. It plays. It always plays.)
This is great, and it resolves one of the more puzzling things from my time living in Austin, which long was: Why is it so hard to find the Longhorns broadcast in New Braunfels? Not that I go to New Braunfels often, but when I took a Lyft passenger down there during the LSU game in 2019, I couldn’t find the game on the radio, and I was shaken. I thought this state liked football! I was past San Marcos by the time it crackled back in from the static.
I know, I know, New Braunfels is well south of Caldwell and Hays Counties. But at night, AM radio should reach Comal, right? Has radio range changed in the last 15 years? Please tell me we haven’t broken AM radio since the days when my dad and I were catching the Cubs while driving through southern Indiana and up towards Battle Creek and out into the woods of Wisconsin. (See? Imagine that if I added four more Midwestern locations. It would get you going. It gets me going just thinking about it!)
I’m curious what prompted the move. I assume it was the end of a contract, but I’m hoping it’s either 1) a Longhorn Network conspiracy or 2) pressure to keep up with the SEC’s local radio culture. With option 1, it’s possible to see the previously weaker signal as a pseudo-blackout designed to force folks to turn on LHN. With option 2, it’s funny to think of Texas watching those Wes Blankenship videos and saying, “We need to keep up with Coffeetown.”
Whatever the reason, Craig Way’s vivacious growl of “from Nacogdoches!” will appear via a different signal this season. I hope it does, anyway. I hope there’s a guy from Nacogdoches getting snaps. I love hearing Craig Way say “Nacogdoches.” That’s another thing that gets me going.
