Ware, whose contract with the CBS Radio-owned station expires at the end of the month, announced his decision on the show he has co-hosted since June 2007 with Marc Vandermeer, his Texans radio partner since the team's inaugural season in 2002.

He said the decision was prompted in part by a recent agreement with ESPN to make more appearances on the network's College Football Live show in addition to calling Saturday college football games.

"I'll be going back and forth between here and Bristol, and I knew this fall it would be too much to try to do those shows as well as games. So things had to be scaled back in some capacity somewhere," he said.

Ware said he talked over the weekend with Brian Purdy, the new general manager of CBS Radio's Houston stations, and hopes the two can reach an agreement that will allow him to continue calling Texans games with Vandermeer.

"Everyone agrees that that is the road we want to continue," Ware said. "To be around Marc every day has been fun. We have a lot of fun when we do games and are on the road together."

KILT paired Vandermeer and Ware in morning drive two years ago after longtime morning hosts John Granato and Lance Zierlein moved from KILT to KGOW (1560 AM). The show briefly dropped behind the Granato-Zierlein show in the men 25-54 demographic before retaking the lead in the latest monthly Arbitron report.

The 1989 Heisman Trophy winner at the University of Houston, Ware in recent years has called ESPN's 11 a.m. Saturday college football games, mostly from the Big 10, with Dave Pasch, the radio voice of the Arizona Cardinals. His assignments for 2009 have not been announced, but he said he hopes to continue working with Pasch.

Vandermeer, who worked on KILT's afternoon drive time show with Rich Lord before the 2007 move to morning drive with Ware, said he will miss seeing his Texans broadcast partner every day.

"Andre is a great friend, and this is certainly not the end of our association, but I'm going to miss being with him every day," Vandermeer said. "A lot of people have gotten to know him in a way they never knew him (through the morning show). He was able to reveal a personal side to himself, and that was great."

Ware's announcement creates another opportunity for Purdy to shuffle operations at KILT. Friday, he dismissed the station's longtime program director, Bill Van Rysdam, and now he has the opportunity to decide whether to reshuffle the station's current lineup or to bring on another host in an effort to increase KILT's share in the crowded Houston sports radio market.

Purdy said he will speak with Ware and with the Texans about Ware’s desire to remain as part of the Texans radio broadcast team.

“I know that everybody has been really pleased with Marc and Andre as the play by play combination for Texans broadcasts,” he said. “He does a terrific job, and hopefully there’s a way for us to continue down that line.”

Purdy also said that the station’s new program director will decide how to rearrange the talk show lineup in the wake of Ware’s impending departure. He said a decision on that opening could be made within three weeks.

“Job one for us is filing the vacant program director’s position,” he said. “At that point, it would be his or her job to reorganize our lineup. We’ve received a number of inquiries about the position. It’s a great market and a great radio station, so there’s a lot of demand for that opportunity. I believe it’s appropriate to let the PD make the talent decisions, and that would be the case here.”