Keith Gallmon Jr. didn't hear any bell. 

Not on the game, not the season, and not his college football career. 

Gallmon, the graduate transfer from South Alabama, has been around the block and then some. Prior to Austin Peay, he'd spent six seasons in Mobile, where he experienced all the highs and lows that could be expected – from being a three-year starter and two-time All-Sun Belt choice to experiencing back-to-back seasons cut short in agonizing fashion due to pectoral injuries, first his right and then his left – from a lengthy collegiate career. With an extra season of eligibility in his pocket thanks to the pandemic, Gallmon brought his game to Clarksville for one more ride. 

The possibilities are endless for one-year transfers taking one last shot at collegiate glory, both in opportunity and result. It's such a compact session – basically, speed-running an entire career in just a few short months, from getting to know teammates and coaches, developing a routine, learning your way around the program and university, figuring out scheme and fit and a million other things it's hard to glean about any program or staff over the course of a visit weekend – that it's hard to predict who will successfully navigate everything in time to be a productive player. It's jarring to note that you can blink and football season is over but… Louisville doesn't feel all that long ago now, does it? A bad stretch, an untimely injury or a week or so in the doghouse can sink a season on that timeline. 

That's not Keith Gallmon Jr. Diligent and reliable, he acclimated to his new surroundings as quickly as he could and established himself as a difference-maker in the Governor secondary. 

"It's been a blessing," he said of getting one more opportunity. "Once I started getting injured [at South Alabama], there were a lot of hard times battling my way back and building myself back up to being the player I wanted to be. That first game [Gallmon's season debut at Central Arkansas], I was just so happy to be back out there and be part of the group again. These guys were really a special group for me because they really took me in over the summer and kept encouraging me because they knew the player I could be when the season came around." 

Make no mistake, Gallmon has been exceptional for the Govs this season – despite missing three games; he wound up finishing fourth on the team with 53 total tackles, adding 2.0 TFL, a breakup, a quarterback hurry, and an interception against Utah Tech with under two minutes to go in the game to essentially seal a hard-fought road win for the Govs. If he simply took the field and managed his typical performance on Saturday, he would've earned somewhere between six and seven tackles and made every player think twice when venturing into the Austin Peay secondary. As Gallmon himself acknowledged after the game, the gravity of playing his final collegiate game began to wear on him during the week and will take some time to unpack over the coming days.

"It's my last one, so a lot of thoughts and emotions went into the game this week," he said. "At South Alabama, I knew I didn't go out the way I wanted to when I got hurt. To be out there one more time, leave it all on the field, and be there for my team one last time, it felt amazing."

But if Gallmon had just been fine, regular ol' Keith out there knocking necks loose in the second or third level a handful of times a game, that would have been a perfectly nice way to go out. Hail and well-met, thank you for your service for the glory of Austin Peay – all earned already. 

But Gallmon decided that if Saturday is the end, he wasn't going out quietly. He would go out and leave it all on the turf at Fortera Stadium, which he did to the tune of a career-high 13 tackles – one more than his previous best against Southern Miss in 2020. Chattanooga, a team that came into the game averaging more than 150 yards on the ground over their last four games, was held to 81 yards and a paltry 2.4 yards per carry Saturday, with Gallmon coming into the box time and again to lay lumber and limit the Mocs on the ground. Gallmon tackled or assisted on 11 Chattanooga runs, runs that only netted the Mocs 31 yards on the day. 

The Govs didn't go out with a win the way they'd hoped, but Gallmon and the rest of the graduating class earned well-deserved plaudits from head coach Jeff Faris after the game for setting the foundation for his program moving forward.

"I want to thank the seniors," Faris said. "They did not take the easy path. They love this university, and they fought every single day, and I think today was an example of that. I can't thank those guys enough for what they did for the program."

In the end, with nothing but pride on the line and the opportunity to make life difficult for Chattanooga, Keith Gallmon Jr. produced a performance to be proud of, the type of game everyone hopes to end their college career on. When the horn sounded, when the proverbial bell rang for the final time, the Mobile native held his head high and went out on his own terms.