 This is the OTP presented by Farm Bureau Health Plans. Farm Bureau Health Plans is healthcare coverage the way it should be. High quality, sensibly priced and easy to apply for at FBHP.com. With Amy Wells, I'm Mike Keith. It is Monday, August the 22nd. It sure is. How are you? I'm really good. How are you? I'm well. I've been using the books. Yeah. One more to go. The end is in sight, Mike. Well, the end and the beginning. Exactly. Once you get through the preseason games and you get through training camp, then all of a sudden the world is in hyperdrive and it's so exciting. But I have really enjoyed this training camp slash preseason. I've enjoyed the two preseason games because I think the work has been excellent from the standpoint that we have gotten to see Titans young players and backups play against two teams, two good teams also playing young players and backups plus two practices. So I think the work's been good. I think the efforts have been solid and I think you can kind of stake out some things pretty quickly. It has not been as sometimes dull as a preseason can be. Now, if you look at the scores, you look at 23 to 13 and 13 to 3, you're like, eh. But I'm just talking about guys we've seen playing and what they're able to do. You're 100% right. There has been a lot of really good work and it has been a more exciting kind of training camp process than it normally is. And I think part of that is because this is the first one where we're really back, like all the way back. Well, that's true too. And so it's felt really good to be back in the swing of things, be around people you're seeing great work being done. I feel like we're in it more, but I am starting to crave the football routine. Sure. I'm starting to crave the practices at the same time and all of the other bits and pieces and things that we do here covering the team. You know, I'm missing the TV shows. I'm missing the radio shows. I'm ready to get back to all of that stuff. I'm ready to be in the middle of the season. It's about to happen. I know I can't wait. It's about to happen. Right off the bat on this Monday edition of the OTP, four players were waved earlier today. Cornerback Shaheem Carter from Alabama, Shakur Brown, a guy who plays the slot from Michigan State. So two defensive backs waved. Outside linebacker Justin Lawler, late of the LA Rams, waved. And Terry Godwin, wide receiver from Georgia, who was the leading receiver in the Baltimore game, waved. So four players waved at this point. The Godwin thing is probably the big surprise. The two defensive backs were waved injured. But the Godwin thing is the big surprise. I wonder if that has to do with a couple of things. First of all, they've now seen Godwin. They know what he can do. Could he be back with the practice squad at some point when it's formed? And that's only a week and a half away. Wow. So he could be back. I mean, any of these guys could be back once they clear all the protocols and, you know, meet the standards of whatever. But Godwin is the interesting one. The second part of that is Reggie Robertson's performance the other night. He kind of took a step and had had a good week. You knew they were probably going to have to let a receiver go at this point because that's where they have some bulk numbers. And so you wonder about the rookie from SMU if that sort of gave them a chance to say, OK, we want to see more of him for the next week. Before we make a final decision on him. We know what Godwin is. We know who he is. And now we want to see more Robertson to figure out. What struck me about this list of names was that exactly what you just said, they're in groups that have big numbers. So there's a lot of depth there. And we've talked about this on the show before that sometimes guys are released not because they're bad players, but because they want to give them the opportunity to either get on somewhere else or they want to give some other people in that room the opportunity to get on film. They know what they've got with this person. Now they want to give someone else the opportunity to get some reps. Show what they can do. So I think that this is a this isn't totally unexpected. Some of these moves, some of these people going. And so now we're going to get the chance to see a couple other people who maybe we haven't heard their names as much. And it's not for any other reason other than just there's been a lot of numbers in some of those rooms. Right, let's talk a little bit about Mike Vrable's Sunday press availability. And each of us have picked a comment from Mike Vrable that we want to share. Go ahead with yours if you don't mind. Who is yours in regards to? So mine is in regard to Kyle Phillips. And they were talking about his performance not as a wide receiver, but on special teams. That's a bright spot. You know, we don't want to catch him in the end zone. But, you know, I love what he did is being decisive, getting upfield, making guys miss. We talked about the efforts we had guys going to the second level. We played penalty free. And so, you know, Kyle just judged the ball well and just want to make sure that we continue and, you know, hopefully make that a strength. So here's why I thought this was interesting, Mike Keith. Usually when Mike Vrable is asked about what was a potential misstep. And so what they're really talking about is when he caught what could have been, should have been a fair catch, ran it out of the end zone and was able to make something out of that play. I'll disagree with that. It should not have been a fair catch. He should have just let it go. Yes, yes, yes. Theoretically, he should have let it go. You're right. But he catches it, runs it out and makes it into something. Twenty six yards. Yeah, my expectation from Vrable when he was asked about it was to say, yeah, we don't want him to do that. We're working on it, you know, then some coach speak about rookies and fixing it. That's not what he said there. No, he called him a bright spot. He said that what he's been doing has been very impressive. Obviously, he made a mistake, but he was so proud that he was able to turn it into something. And that struck me because that seems to me to be a reflection not only on Kyle Phillips and what he's been able to do in camp, but how highly this coaching staff thinks of him as a player overall. And the trust. Yes. They have a ton of trust in him because he makes the decision. He catches the ball over his shoulder and then immediately comes back out. Now, as we saw later in the game, when a punt returner for Tampa Bay fielded a punt in the end zone from Ryan Stonehouse, the ball that traveled, I think, closer to 90 yards in the air. Unbelievable. Then it did 80. And I've looked back on it. I've tried to look at the spot from which he kicked it and the spot at which it was caught. The ball was at least 85 yards in the air. Crazy. But the guy fields it. And because the momentum of the ball goes off his hands and goes through the end zone, it's just a touch back. Immediately, I'm sure there were people who thought it was a safety, but if the momentum of the ball, even if you contact it, if the momentum of the ball carries through the end zone, then it's a touch back. So he fields Phillips, fields this ball over his shoulder and immediately starts back up the field. And Vrable did not have the usual, you plant your feet on the eight yard line because he was not fielding it in a way that he was standing under it at the one yard line. He was going back to get it. And maybe it traveled a little further than he thought. But again, when I heard him say that, I said, man, they trust this guy. Well, and in talking to Kyle Phillips, that has been his goal all along. It's not just the athletic stuff. It's building trust with the quarterback, building trust with the coaching staff, building trust with the other guys who are on the field with him. He has said from the very beginning, that's his goal. I mean, the athletic stuff obviously is important and knowing the playbook and understanding what you need to do, I guess, the X's and O's. But he wants every single person on that field to trust him to be able to do his job. And he has said that every time he steps on the field, it's an opportunity to earn that trust. So for that to be reflected in Mike Vrable's press conference, that's got to feel good for him. When you have a returner who is a threat and you're one of the other 10 guys, you are energized. Yeah, you are energized to go make a block. You're energized to be on point because this is a person who can take it all the way at a moment's notice. When you have a dude like that, it picks up the entire unit and you could see guys going to look for somebody, turning back up the field. They weren't just standing around. They know he can do it. So I think there's trust in those teammates as well too, which is something very exciting. And he's shifty. He is shifty. I love it. Putt returners have to be shifty. Don't you just like watching him run around though? I really enjoy it. Every time he's on the field, I get a little excited because he's shifty and you never know what he's gonna do. You never know what he's gonna do. He's quick on his feet. What I call him, a weasel? Yeah, he's a quick little weasel. I still don't like that characterization because I don't think weasel is positive. I think weasels are fast though. Well, I don't... I'm gonna look it up. You talk about your thing that you liked and I'm gonna... Raybel's comment, which was interesting from the press conference to me yesterday, was about Caleb Farley. Caleb Farley ended up playing 27 regular defensive snaps and five special team snaps, playing a lot for the second preseason game in a row. Mike Raybel laid out, after being pushed to answer it, Mike Raybel laid out the reason that we saw so much of Caleb Farley Saturday night against Tampa Bay. We really wanna start seeing guys string some days together and I think that's where you start to build consistency, you start to build most importantly confidence and so I thought Caleb's second day was much better than his first day and so hopefully that we could string a third day together, which would have been the game and I think that that happened. You know, we talk about Caleb's emotions, you know what I mean? He's just so excited to be out there. He hasn't really played a whole lot of football and I noticed early on against the practices in Tampa, he was pretty emotionally spent, which then causing him to be physically spent. It was just the... So just trying to get him to focus on his emotions and keeping them pretty neutral so that he can have as much energy for each and every play and to withstand the length of the game, the heat, the conditions that they have. I mean, corner, you gotta run and so that's just another opportunity for him to get some conditioning and you know, it was good to see him have a couple of good back to back days. And it makes total sense. He's right, he has not played that much corner. Here's the other part too. Amy, he's coming back from an ACL. That's a confidence thing. The more he plays, the more confident he is going to be on that knee. In the Thursday practice against Tampa, we saw what he did well. We saw some decent stuff the other night from him. He had a couple of plays. But this is gonna be a guy, I think, that will continue to be a work in progress and they will continue to have their confidence grow in him as his confidence grows in himself. Not just playing defensive back, but confidence in his health. Yeah, and I think that that's an important thing to remember is that A, he has to learn how to trust his body again. B, he has to trust his mind to know what's going on because he's been taking mental reps for so long. And mental reps, while valuable, are very different than in football action reps. And so he has to be able to trust that he knows what he's doing. He has the athletic ability to do that because the guy has not played a lot of football in the last couple years. So all of those things can contribute to being a little wary and trying to play it safe. And the Mike Vrabel style of football and what he wants out of this team is not playing it safe. I wanna hit on a couple of things that you touched on on Titan's radio the other night. Let's start with Malik Willis. So Malik Willis gets the start. We ask you, and you reported on Titan's radio, what he was doing when he came to the sidelines, when the defense went back on the field, what Malik was working on and with whom he was working. Tell that story, if you would please. So against Baltimore, against the Ravens in the first pre-season game, every time Malik Willis came off the field and came over to the sidelines, he had his arm around Todd Downing, the Titan's offensive coordinator. They were working through a lot of things and a lot of them were very kind of not basic, but it was kind of more broad type of things. It wasn't really detailed finite stuff. So then the next week, pre-season game two, every time he comes to the sidelines, he's walking right over to Ryan Tannehill. Ryan Tannehill had one of those surfaces, the Microsoft surface that they use on the sidelines, and he's going through the pictures that are on there. And he's looking at Malik and showing him exactly what he sees when he goes through that. So he would pull up a picture and say, when I look at this, I see this, I see this. Here's what that means on the field. So he's reading the play as if he were the quarterback. Yes. So Malik can hear how he, as the veteran starting quarterback, would read it. Processes it. Absolutely. So he was going through that. He's doing it for Logan Woodside's there as well. So this was a real teaching moment for Ryan Tannehill overall, but Malik was just absorbing all of it. You could almost see him inflating like a sponge. I thought it was such a cool thing to see because there's so much information for him to glean in those moments, doing it in real time. And I've talked to Malik about this before, having those corrections during a game, being able to do something on the field, immediately get feedback on it and then go back on the field and try it again has been so valuable for him. And I think that's why the coaching staff has continued to give him these opportunities in games. I think it's why we've started to see some improvement and some confidence within him because he's getting some of that. It's not just kind of broad strokes, big figurative kind of corrections. It's in the moment, this is what you did. This is how I would process this information, go do it again and try it this other way. It's very tangible. Well, and they have judged in many places that this generation of people who are in their 20s, whatever, I don't know how you wanna term them, but in that age group are very much visual learners. And so you're seeing more of this around football. For example, they will go into a meeting space where they sit with chairs and there's like a projector, and they will show a play from practice. And they will say, here's what happened in this play and this is with an individual position group. And then they will get up and walk through it how it should have been done properly. They will say 71 did this right, but 68 did not do this right. This is what he needs to do. And so it's the same sort of thing you're talking about with Malik Willis, working with the surface with Ryan Tannehill and able to come off the field and see what just happened, not just as a picture, but in that teaching way. I thought that was interesting. You also told us that Rashad Weaver was doing a lot the same thing with Bud Dupri. And they go way back because Bud Dupri was with the Steelers when Rashad Weaver was at Pitt. So they kind of had a knowing of each other, just kind of being more in like gym workout spaces. Then they have a mutual friend in an agent or something like that who introduced them. They have worked out together before they both ended up here with the Titans. So they have a little background, but now that they are friends and teammates, Bud Dupri is a huge resource for Rashad Weaver. And to the point where on the sidelines, again, they're standing next to each other, they're acting things out, Bud's kind of like changing his positioning in different things. And it's really cool to see, I felt like I was kind of the buddy police on the sidelines, because all of a sudden I noticed that everybody's kind of coupling up and finding like their mentor for different things. And they're kind of finding a buddy, a young guy and a vet to kind of help them out. And it was really interesting to see that, I guess it's not always that overt or that obvious to my mind anyway, that there are young guys who find an older guy who can really help them. And just seeing all of these guys kind of naturally find their person to help them on the sidelines, I think speaks to the veteran presence that we have in this locker room right now. I mean, we have a lot of guys who are willing to teach and help these younger guys, even though some of them are, I mean, from a business standpoint, coming from their jobs. Well, Nicholas Petey Freyer is getting that from some of the older guys and he continues to surge at this point. Rookie offensive lineman, trying to win the right tackle job, doing all of the right things right now, played a lot the other night, even at left tackle, moved over to left tackle and did a good job. It was funny because I was doing some research work on Petey Freyer yesterday and went back and listened to the interview that he gave us pre-draft. Oh, I love these. When he visited Ascension St. Thomas Sports Park. And I don't know if we've ever played this. Maybe we did right after the draft. I can't remember. But the point is, I thought it would be great to share this because if you're wondering about how a rookie may end up being your right tackle and that's okay, listen to Nicholas Petey Freyer and listen to the type of person he is. And you could just tell he is someone who gets it. So we're gonna roll this and this is from back in March, probably. He was one of the first guys to visit here. He was a target. Titans never get him if they don't make the trade with AJ Brown that resulted in the trade with the Jets that produced the extra picks. He wouldn't have been there at 90. In the late 60s, fortunately the Titans had a pick and he was there. But this is a guy raised in Tampa by his mother who gave birth to him when she was a senior in high school. And yet she has gone on to be very successful and obviously in his mind is a great role model and example for him. This is my conversation with Nicholas Petey Freyer, pre-draft for the OT people and see if you don't like what you hear. Tell me what it's gonna mean to your mother that you're a drafted NFL football player. Describe the moment. All that work that she's done for 22 years, taking care of me, feeding me, like doing everything that she needed to do to make sure that I was gonna be able to have a moment like this to reach my dreams of being able to play in a league. It means that all of her parenting and all of her lessons finally paid off. So it'll be the biggest moment for her. She's a remarkable story. Would you say right at the top of your heroes list? Of course, yeah. I mean, my mom's probably one of the most influential people in my life in terms of her resilience and in terms of not letting things get to her, always working hard, always feeding me, making sure that I was always taken care of, making sure she took care of our family in general. So she's one of my biggest heroes in terms of that. How has she shaped you as a person? She taught me to be compassionate. She taught me to be caring, but then also not to be mediocre to make sure that everything I do, I strive to become the very best that I can be, whether that was in sports, whether it was in academics or just in life in general, that not to take things lightly, don't be mediocre and always try to be my best. How has she shaped you as a football player? Because mama influence does carry over between the lines. I mean, she just told me to be tough. She told me to always play hard. Like, I mean, she didn't really know a lot about football when I first started, but all she knew was that as long as I was having fun and then I wasn't being soft around the field, I was always just playing as tough as I can be. I was always going as hard as I could. So I give credit to her for being able to stick with me throughout football and always just making sure that I knew what I needed to do when I got onto the field and playing to the best of my abilities. There are few players who come out in this draft class who have improved as consistently as you have throughout your career, from high school to a red shirt, to being able to play some in 19, starter at right tackle in 20, starter at left tackle in 21. Why have you been able to improve so consistently throughout your football career? One thing I'll say is it's all of my coaches that have instilled that ability in me for me to say that I could keep improving no matter what. They've never been the type of people to say that I, to rest my laurels. They've always been someone to say, hey, you need to get better. And that came from not only at my coaches out of Ohio State, but also my coach in high school. But every single one of my coaches have always instilled in me that you can be even greater than what you just did. There's no let up in what you do. And as long as you work hard, you keep striving to get better, you will get better. Now that you're an NFL player, do you care if you're a left tackle or right tackle? I just care that I get a chance to play. So as long as I can help a team win in Super Bowl, help a team win games, it doesn't matter if I was playing left tackle, right tackle, guard or even center. As long as I have a chance to be on the field and help a team win in Super Bowl, that's all that really matters. Do you feel like playing on the interior is something that you could do comfortably, quickly? I do, especially with the coaching staff that would be behind me, because if they drafted me and they said that we wanted you to play guard, that means that they saw something in me that they think that I could play that position and they have all the faith in me. And as long as I have a coaching staff that instills that faith in me and it says that, hey, we believe in you, we drafted you, this is why we picked you the way that we picked you and this is why we, as a team and as an organization, said that we want you to be this next guy and this next guy has to play an interior position. That would give me all the faith in the world to know that not only that I can do it personally, but that they believe in me as well. What is the part of your game that you think most people don't know just reading a draft capsule or a bio? How hard I play? I mean, I say that I'm one of the hardest playing players in our draft class and not only just in terms of how much I work on the field and how much I do in terms of making extra efforts on the plays and things like that and running downfield with my running backs and other players and things like that, like I'm always trying to do extra effort and do things that show toughness and physicality and extra effort. So that's something that not a lot of people talk about because usually people talk about strength or speed or foot quickness, but like no one really talks about the nuts and bolts about football, which is being tougher than the other guy that crossed from you and playing with a lot of effort and a lot of energy. Now they do talk about how much weight you've gained. I know you get tired of being asked about that. The other thing that gets written up is it says that, hey, he's not a finished product. His upside is tremendous. Do you agree with that or does that sort of make you mad? It doesn't make me mad. I mean, I'm always looking for me to improve on. So that's never been something that I really looked at as a negative that people think that I could still improve in my game. What that tells me is that there's things that people see that are apparent and that's just more motivation for me to go out there and fix those things and to keep grinding and keep competing and trying to find a way to fix those things that people think are, they're not there yet or technique or things that are not as fine tuned as they may believe. But as long as I have a belief in myself that I can keep improving and doing things like that, all those comments are just fuel to the fire and things that I take as more of a way to get better. Finally, we all have idols. We all have people we look up to. We all have people we emulate. Is there a current or former NFL offensive lineman that you try to pattern your game after or think your game looks like or could look even more like? I wanna model my game after Andrew Winther because when you look at him, he's a 40-year-old who started in the NFL Championship game. So you think he's Super Bowl. So you think yourself, how do you do that? Why is he doing that? And like from what I've learned from people who used to coach him and like from just watching him in his tape is that he's one of the most technically sound players in the league. Not only at the office of line position, but in general. So the way that he does his technique, how dedicated he is to his craft, I mean, he's one of the best players in terms of that. So my goal and aspiration is for me to be as good as he is in terms of technique. He's impressive. He's very impressive. Very impressive. And he may be a starter against the Giants. So nice the way he talks about his mom. I know. Well, and grandparents and, I mean, some pretty amazing people. You know, he was a five star when he signed with Ohio State. Oh, I didn't realize that. Oh yeah, he was a five star. I mean, he was like everybody's all American. He was the deal. He was the deal. His problem was he only weighed 275 when he got to Ohio State. Well. He was a big offensive lineman well into the 300s. He had to take a red shirt and then he really had to eat. Just to eat. Don't come to practice. Just eat. He's about 315 right now, but he has to work hard to keep his weight up. I think he's very similar to what Michael Ruse was, to what Brad Hopkins was. I mean, we've had several guys over the years who've had to really work hard to keep that weight up. And he's an athletic guy. Obviously very intelligent. And, you know, the Titans make the trade with the Eagles and get pick number 18 and 101. And then with 18, they end up taking Traylon Burks. Then they trade out of the original pick they had 27 with the Jets. They get 35, 69 and then a fifth round pick, which ended up being Kyle Phillips. Pretty good. So for those picks, they got Roger McCreary at 35. They got Nicholas Petit-Fraer at 69 and they got Kyle Phillips at 163. All of whom are going to play for this football team this year. Yeah, that's a pretty solid haul right there. That's pretty good. It's a very solid haul. Yeah. So interesting week for the Titans. The Arizona Cardinals are coming in. The two teams practice against each other on Wednesday and then play on Saturday night. No JJ Watt. He will not be making the trip because he has COVID. The Cardinals are a beat up football team right now. And they're certainly gearing up for their opener like the Titans are. So they're probably going to be a little bit cautious, but still good for these young players to work against another team. It really is. It's really good. I talked to Chig Aconquo after the game just about kind of what he had learned in a week of doing these joint practices and kind of what he could take into the next one. And he was like, you know, it was just kind of good to get some reps like to just understand what that was. So I think that this might be even a little bit more productive for the young guys the second time around because they know what to expect. They know kind of how it works now because there's a lot of adjusting. There's poor guys doing a lot of adjusting this training camp. This edition of the OTP and all editions of the OTP are brought to you by Farm Bureau Health Plans much more than healthcare coverage. It's a better experience. Visit FBHP.com to learn more. So we're going to wrap up this edition of the OTP with something that I think is very special. There was a great, great, great broadcaster in the booth at Nissan Stadium on Saturday night. His name is Gene Deckerhoff. Gene Deckerhoff is one of the more amazing figures in broadcasting because he was one of the first guys that did a college game on Saturday and then turned around and did a pro game on Sunday. And he did it for 32 years. He did Florida State on Saturday and he did the Tampa Bay Buccaneers on Sunday from 1989 through 2021. Isn't that crazy? It's exhausting. You think? Well, yeah. Well, and he did it well. That was what was really amazing. He has one of those memorable voices when he says fire them cannons, you know, when they score a touchdown at home in Tampa. That's his line. He's a legendary figure. He's one of those guys who's a character, which is fun. And I had a chance to spend some time with him before the game. And if you don't know him, you'll immediately get why he's a special deal when you hear this. So for the OT people, one of the great NFL broadcasters and a guy who is a great college football broadcaster, just stopped doing Florida State in the spring, now only doing the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, my visit with Gene Deckerhoff on the OT. What is it like for you to just be calling one football team now instead of two? Well, Mike, I'm still pulling for those nobles but yeah, sometimes you have to slow things down and I turned 77 back in May and so it's just time to slow. And part of the decision was this is strictly football. There's no basketball, no baseball, no talk shows, no calling shows, no pregame shows and play by play. And I thoroughly enjoy the preparation. Mike, I know you do too. I mean, people say don't just show up and say it's Tampa Bay versus the Titans. Yeah, we put in 24 hours worth of work and type of depth charts and typing stats and try to get some notes together that will make the broadcast interesting. And when you have two teams that you're preparing for two games, the time of preparation just is outrageous. So anyway, I've made the decision. I'm happy with the decision. This is our second game and I haven't looked back and I do know that I have my tickets for FSU games. I can go to three of them this year because of the buck schedule and I look forward to going to those ballgames, including that Florida game, the Friday after Thanksgiving will fly to Cleveland the next day for the Bucks game on Sunday. But no, I don't know if I answered your question, Mike. Someday you're going to have to face that decision. Well, here's what I wondered though. I wonder a lot because your career has been fascinating. You did Florida State for 43 years. Football for 43. 43. Basketball for 48. 48. And then in 1989, you started doing both. My number one question is how did you convince Anne Decker-Hoff that was okay? Well, at the time, Anne was working and she worked for the Lee and County tax collectors for 37 years. She and I have made many a trip down to Tampa home games. We leave at 6.05 a.m. and arrive at the hotel at 10.30. I get to drop Anne off and go to the stadium, broadcast the game, come back. And for the last 10 years now going on 11, she has been retired. So we spend Sunday night in Tampa then drive home leisurely on Mondays, more leisurely this year because I won't have to do a seven o'clock TV talk show. Florida State has been a national team because you were with Bobby Bowden. And so they played all over the country. Obviously an NFL team plays all over the country. Did you ever almost miss one or the other? I had to leave the Clebson game after the first quarter, 2019, catch a little plane there right near the university and fly to Atlanta and catch a plane to go across the Atlantic Ocean. And I arrived at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium 45 minutes before kickoff. I didn't miss anything there so I missed the three quarters of the Florida State game. Game earlier against Maryland, it would have been in the 90s, our first game in London or second game in London and I left at halftime. Same thing, small plane, Tallahassee, Atlanta, big plane across the ocean and we played at Wimbledon Stadium there in that London game. We're going to Munich this year and I don't have to worry about what I'm doing on Saturday. I'm gonna fly with a team to Munich and boy, I've seen the ads about the London games on the NFL Network. That stadium just looks, I mean, I thought Tottenham Hotspur was a spectacular building but this one even looks more impressive. I don't speak a Deutsch, I can't speak a language of German but maybe I'll learn how to say hello and you know, Donka, Donka Shane, thank you very much. That's the whole song, Mike. A lot of your listeners don't remember that song, baby. That's a long time ago. Wayne Newton. Wayne Newton from Las Vegas, Nevada. Yeah, okay, yeah. So tell me this, have you ever had problems keeping the two teams separate? Have you ever called a Florida State player, a Tampa Bay Buccaneer or a Tampa Bay Buccaneer, a Florida State player? Not so much the players but sometimes that Florida Buccaneers have it at the 22 yard line. I mean, you know, so you catch yourself but you try very hard not to do that but if you do make that mistake, our broadcast manager will let me know on the IFB and it's Tampa Bay but that doesn't happen very often and who knows, it may happen this season too even though I'm not doing two games, you know, 529 college games and over 670 pro games and all in the space of the four months of the fall. I mean, August, two, December, five months and it's a grind and I expect it to be a grind now. I mean, I'm probably working harder in preparation for the Bucks than I've been able to in the past 33 years, you know? But Mike, this is, I was thinking about this on this trip, this will be when I go to a Florida State football game, the three that I mentioned. That will be the first time I have sat in the stadium as a fan and not a broadcaster or a TV reporter. Half a century, 49 years. Same thing with basketball. I drive by the basketball facility that Donald O. Tucker sat in and I said, man, 1,324 games. A lot of them right there in that building. I saw that building built in 1981. We used to play a tiny television, remember the old Metro conference fell by then, Bob Costas. He broadcast the game of the week and he came to the Metro seven. Maybe the Metro to begin with had seven but it expanded had about 11, 12. But Louisville Memphis, Memphis was in that. And every time I've talked to Bob since he says, if they tore down that Tully gym, and I said, no, it's still that. That's where the volleyball team plays indoor. The volleyball, that's the volleyball teams for Florida State, its primary arena. And it still holds about the same number. It doesn't have cushion seats. And there's a crow's nest where we have the broadcast from. Florida State fans have been effusive in their love for you, particularly since you decided to step down after the spring game in reading things and hearing things and watching things. It's been remarkable. How gratifying is that? You know, fans make athletics special. Without fans, I mean, I guess you'd go out and compete, but well, just go back two years, we had the Cobra thing. Nobody was saying, I mean, it was weird. But the fans make, and particularly college fans, I've talked to people on a regular base and say, you know, you're the only guy ever listed to do Florida State. And you're the only guy that my son has ever listed to do Florida State. Very gratifying to me. And I think it is to, you know, you see people all the time. Hey, you're the guy on radio. You're the guy on radio. You're the guy on radio. Yes, I am. And now the big course I get, how's it feel to be retired in Tallahassee? Well, you know, I'm retired from the Knowles, but I still got a job on Sundays. Speaking of fans, Central Boosters, one of the largest organizations to raise money for athletic programs in the country. And I just gave a talk to the Lakeland Folk County Seminole Club. One of the joint practices with the Dolphins I went over to Lakeland, did the talk. And on September the 14th, I'll be here in Nashville with a group of Seminole Boosters telling how great the Knowles are gonna be. And oh, by the way, you know, Mike Norbell's got Tennessee roots, he coached at Memphis. And I'll come up and tell us a few tall tales and reminisce a little bit. And obviously say the Knowles are gonna win nine or 10 and, you know, make it into a big bowl game. But that'll be, that's after the Dallas game before the New Orleans game. You've won Super Bowls. You've won national championships. Does one stand out as your most favorite? Three national championships and two Super Bowls. Golly, we should have beat the St. Louis Rams of the NFC Championship game in 1999. We just fell a little bit short and never forget a busted play and they scored a touchdown. And that was what got, you know, the Rams into the Super Bowl, but we didn't make it. But yeah, the very first would stands out, obviously. I mean, you know, the Super Bowl in San Diego. Golly, 48 to 21. I mean, we just took Oakland out to the woodshed. But earlier, the Knowles had won two championships before that first Super Bowl. FSU's wedded 93. That has to be, that's the benchmark of Bobby Bowdre. The 99 was the undefeated season, the 12 and 0, wire to our number one. That, Chris Wakey, Heisman Trophy winner. Charlie Ward, Heisman Trophy winner, 93. The thing about that 93 championship game, Mutual Radio had exclusive rights and we could not broadcast that. I watched that game on my television at home. I had a Bucks game the next day, so I said, you know, why go to Miami and, you know. I missed that game. And Derek Brooks, when he was enshrined at the Pro Football Hall of Fame, he gave a little talk, thanked all the fans, friends for coming, family for coming, coaches from college and from pro being there when he was being enshrined into the hall. And then as he wrapped up his copy, he said, I want this guy over here to come up here. And it was me, he's this G Dekaroff. And I walk up there and I'm saying, what's your word? He said, this guy right here broadcasts every game I played in my college and pro career. And I said, wow, you know, I hadn't thought about that, but I didn't tell him I did not do the 93 championship. That's the only game that I missed. The great Derek Brooks played in what 14 years of NFL, four years in college. And I told Javis Weston this past year, he's now with the Saints, but he came to a Florida State baseball game that happened to me. Somebody told him, Dekaroff's up there, so he comes up and we get big hugs and all that. I told him the story about Derek. I said, you know, Javis, I thought I was going to do the same thing with you. All your college games and all your pro games were the bucks, but it didn't work out. Is Bobby Bowden the most special person that you've had a chance to work with through the entire half century now? Bobby Bowden is a very special man. Almost everything I have in my office and the wall of fame stuff has something to do with Bobby Bowden. But I've been blessed, Mike. Bobby Bowden at the college level and Tony Dungey at the pro level. Two of the greatest human beings on the planet, whether they were a football coach, Coca-Cola salesman or whatever, those guys are just the top of my list. Very religious, spiritual. And in fact, if you see Tony now, he'll coach his subscription. I try to keep up with that. Bobby, I know when I was born again, he sent me a beautiful note. This was in April the 9th, 2000. And he sent me a beautiful note that I still have and he sent me a little cross that I put on my lapel when I go to church. When I wear a coat, I'm trying not to wear a coat anymore, Mike. I think I've worn a tie once in the last year. I don't like ties anymore, but fortunately I don't have to wear a tie because nobody can see me on radio. But Bobby Bowden and Tony Dungey right at the top. Family and then those two, I'd have to say that. I've lived a charm life, just a blessed life. I was pretty nervous talking to Jean Decker off, I must say. Sure. What a nice guy though. I got to sit around once. He was at a convention and there were a couple of other older broadcasters at this same convention and we got to sit around and listen to the older guys tell a few stories from back in the day. Oh, that's awesome. That's the best. Prephones. Yeah, back when the living was easy. Well, they might run around a little late and have some fun. Those guys, I mean, to do what they do and to do it the way they did it for so long and in those days, and certainly before television was so dominant, they could tell a story like nobody's business and off the air, tell an even better story sometimes. Yeah, oh yeah, I believe that. Great stuff. That's awesome. Yeah, it was a thrill to talk. Jean Decker off is an extremely nice man too. He was very nice to me when I was a young guy and certainly was very nice to give me that time the other night now that I'm not a young guy. You're still a young guy to us. Well, compared to Jean I am, but that's okay. Yeah. All right. What do you got? Anything good? Anything you want to say here before we depart? In defense of the weasel, did you know a weasel can travel at speeds of up to 15 miles per hour? That's pretty fast for a little guy and they are killing machines. Yeah. See? What do they kill? Everything. Anything that gets in their way. They have a similar hunting style to that of the Jaguar. But they're little. Yeah, but they're little. Here's what I'm saying. Unsuspecting little furry cute face killer weasels in defense of the weasel. Mike, I think it's a great nickname. I don't think he would like it very much. And you know, he's known as the professor on the team. Yeah, which is fine. But like you're not gonna get killed by a professor. That's not a hardcore name. Have you watched Dateline? I saw this one where stalking a student kind of a thing. Okay, you don't want to be like predatory. Yes. But like a weasel. Keith Morrison. And then the professor. Yeah, see, that's not what we need. We need a good in-game name. Weasel. But we need, what we really need more than anything weasel related is to get Keith Morrison on the OTP. Yes, we do. And then. Yes. Oh, that would make me happy. And then Cincinnati fumbled the ball. Or did they? Or did they? Or did they? A review. Oh my gosh. We've gone off the rails. He left Prince on the ball. We have. All right. I just wanted to defend my nickname. Maybe that should be your nickname. The weasel. Weasel. OK. I used to work with a guy named Brian Tatum in Knoxville. And I gave him the nickname the weasel. I already have a nickname now. And the owner of the radio station got very upset and made me stop calling him that. Made you stop calling him weasel? Which, of course, made me want to do it more. So I did it. I think it's a fine nickname. He loved it, actually. He loved having a nickname. They're angry little rodents. And he was pretty angry. He was an angry little rodent. He's like a real grownup. For Amy Wells, I, Mike Key, thank you and bless you for staying with this. Thank you for listening to the OTP. Or is it?