04-17-2025, 02:26 PM -
College Game Day will not be the same without him. I really enjoy watching that show. Lee's health is declining...he was given long breaks but his predictions are a classis. Last couple of years it has been so sweet to see how Herbstreit looks after him. You can tell they are very close.
https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/5867913...Id=2919085
After nearly four decades and more than 400 mascot heads, Lee Corso is stepping down.
Corso, 89, is retiring from ESPN’s “College GameDay” after Week 1 of the 2025 college football season, the network announced Thursday. Corso will make his final headgear selection — a Saturday morning staple since 1996 — on Aug. 30. (Bound to be some tears on that show)
Corso has been a “College GameDay” analyst since the show’s inception in 1987, when it began in a studio in Bristol, Conn. He departs as its longest-reigning member and last remaining original on-air personality. Corso became a staple of the program alongside host Tim Brando and analyst Beano Cook, and remained so for 38 seasons, now sharing a set with Rece Davis, Kirk Herbstreit, Desmond Howard, Pat McAfee and Nick Saban. He has been a mainstay on the broadcast even through health issues, though he has no longer been on set for the full three-hour broadcast in recent years.
The annual headgear selections, in which he predicts the victor of the “GameDay” matchup by donning the school’s mascot head, ingrained and endeared him with fans nationwide.
“College GameDay” left the studio and hit the road in 1993. Corso’s signature move wasn’t far behind.
On Oct. 5, 1996, “GameDay” traveled to Columbus, Ohio — the site of Ohio State’s campus — for what would be a 38-7 Buckeyes’ demolition of Penn State. There, for the first time, Corso didn’t tell viewers his prediction. He showed them.
“I like Ohio State, 24-13,” said Herbstreit, in his first appearance as a “GameDay” analyst.
“Ay, good pick. I’ll tell you one thing,” Corso said. He then reached for the head of Brutus Buckeye, the Ohio State mascot, under the desk and put it on.
“Buckeyes!”
The Ohio State crowd went nuts (pun intended), and a cornerstone of college football culture was born. Since, Corso has handled dogs, chickens and even reptiles on air while shaking Alabama mascot Big Al’s trunk, dressing as the USC Trojan and walking through a makeshift duck pond while twinning with the Oregon Duck — all in pursuit of delivering the perfect Saturday selection.
To date, Corso has picked more than 400 games.
Tracking Corso’s mascot picks even became a hobby. Cole Reagan, a fan whose website includes a searchable database of headgear picks, has Corso at 287-144 all time, meaning he’s been right 66.6 percent of the time.
Corso has worked 16 seasons since he had a stroke in May 2009. He sustained no permanent brain damage, though his speech was impacted, and he worked his way back for the beginning of the 2009 football season. He continued week after week, developing great chemistry with Herbstreit — who he thanked Thursday for his “friendship and encouragement” — to his left and making a habit of ribbing the weekly guest picker to his right.
“Not so fast, my friend,” became a Corso catchphrase when he disagreed with the pick before him.
In the 2018 interview with The Athletic, Corso reflected on how much fun his job was — and how hard it would be to leave.
“Let me tell you something: On Thursday morning I get up, I get on a first-class plane and fly to a place and stay in a nice hotel and get a lot of great meals,” he said. “First class! Then I go and talk football for a couple hours, I see the best game of the year and I get on a plane (in) first class and I go home.
“And they pay me! Why the hell would you ever think about retiring? It’s like stealing. It’s like stealing. Why would you ever think about retiring? I’m gonna be like that vaudeville act — the guy’s out there talking and talking and they get a hook and they try to hook him and bring him off the stage.”
Corso arrived at ESPN with 28 years of coaching experience — 17 as a head coach — at both the college and professional levels. He coached Louisville from 1969 to 1972, leading the Cardinals to the 1970 Pasadena Bowl and ending the team’s bowl drought of 12 years. He repeated history at Indiana, helping the team to its first bowl win in 75 years: a 38-37 victory over then-unbeaten BYU in the 1979 Holiday Bowl. He later spent a year at Northern Illinois and with the USFL’s Orlando Renegades.
Raised in Miami, Corso played at Florida State from 1953 to 1956, where he was roommates with the late actor Burt Reynolds. Corso played on both sides of the ball and led the Seminoles in interceptions in 1954, rushing yards in 1955, and passing yards and punt returns in 1956. He held FSU’s career interception record (14) for more than two decades and still ranks third on the school’s list.
“I did everything. I was pretty good. Look it up,” Corso told The Athletic in 2018.
When ESPN hired Saban, 73, as an on-air analyst last February, there was a lot of speculation as to what that meant for Corso, who turns 90 in August. At the time, the network was adamant it would allow Corso to leave the show he helped build on his own terms.
The time has come. The terms seem to have been made. And fans get one final headgear selection, as Corso’s pick remains the show’s centerpiece and is synonymous with college football Saturdays.
https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/5867913...Id=2919085
After nearly four decades and more than 400 mascot heads, Lee Corso is stepping down.
Corso, 89, is retiring from ESPN’s “College GameDay” after Week 1 of the 2025 college football season, the network announced Thursday. Corso will make his final headgear selection — a Saturday morning staple since 1996 — on Aug. 30. (Bound to be some tears on that show)
Corso has been a “College GameDay” analyst since the show’s inception in 1987, when it began in a studio in Bristol, Conn. He departs as its longest-reigning member and last remaining original on-air personality. Corso became a staple of the program alongside host Tim Brando and analyst Beano Cook, and remained so for 38 seasons, now sharing a set with Rece Davis, Kirk Herbstreit, Desmond Howard, Pat McAfee and Nick Saban. He has been a mainstay on the broadcast even through health issues, though he has no longer been on set for the full three-hour broadcast in recent years.
The annual headgear selections, in which he predicts the victor of the “GameDay” matchup by donning the school’s mascot head, ingrained and endeared him with fans nationwide.
“College GameDay” left the studio and hit the road in 1993. Corso’s signature move wasn’t far behind.
On Oct. 5, 1996, “GameDay” traveled to Columbus, Ohio — the site of Ohio State’s campus — for what would be a 38-7 Buckeyes’ demolition of Penn State. There, for the first time, Corso didn’t tell viewers his prediction. He showed them.
“I like Ohio State, 24-13,” said Herbstreit, in his first appearance as a “GameDay” analyst.
“Ay, good pick. I’ll tell you one thing,” Corso said. He then reached for the head of Brutus Buckeye, the Ohio State mascot, under the desk and put it on.
“Buckeyes!”
The Ohio State crowd went nuts (pun intended), and a cornerstone of college football culture was born. Since, Corso has handled dogs, chickens and even reptiles on air while shaking Alabama mascot Big Al’s trunk, dressing as the USC Trojan and walking through a makeshift duck pond while twinning with the Oregon Duck — all in pursuit of delivering the perfect Saturday selection.
To date, Corso has picked more than 400 games.
Tracking Corso’s mascot picks even became a hobby. Cole Reagan, a fan whose website includes a searchable database of headgear picks, has Corso at 287-144 all time, meaning he’s been right 66.6 percent of the time.
Corso has worked 16 seasons since he had a stroke in May 2009. He sustained no permanent brain damage, though his speech was impacted, and he worked his way back for the beginning of the 2009 football season. He continued week after week, developing great chemistry with Herbstreit — who he thanked Thursday for his “friendship and encouragement” — to his left and making a habit of ribbing the weekly guest picker to his right.
“Not so fast, my friend,” became a Corso catchphrase when he disagreed with the pick before him.
In the 2018 interview with The Athletic, Corso reflected on how much fun his job was — and how hard it would be to leave.
“Let me tell you something: On Thursday morning I get up, I get on a first-class plane and fly to a place and stay in a nice hotel and get a lot of great meals,” he said. “First class! Then I go and talk football for a couple hours, I see the best game of the year and I get on a plane (in) first class and I go home.
“And they pay me! Why the hell would you ever think about retiring? It’s like stealing. It’s like stealing. Why would you ever think about retiring? I’m gonna be like that vaudeville act — the guy’s out there talking and talking and they get a hook and they try to hook him and bring him off the stage.”
Corso arrived at ESPN with 28 years of coaching experience — 17 as a head coach — at both the college and professional levels. He coached Louisville from 1969 to 1972, leading the Cardinals to the 1970 Pasadena Bowl and ending the team’s bowl drought of 12 years. He repeated history at Indiana, helping the team to its first bowl win in 75 years: a 38-37 victory over then-unbeaten BYU in the 1979 Holiday Bowl. He later spent a year at Northern Illinois and with the USFL’s Orlando Renegades.
Raised in Miami, Corso played at Florida State from 1953 to 1956, where he was roommates with the late actor Burt Reynolds. Corso played on both sides of the ball and led the Seminoles in interceptions in 1954, rushing yards in 1955, and passing yards and punt returns in 1956. He held FSU’s career interception record (14) for more than two decades and still ranks third on the school’s list.
“I did everything. I was pretty good. Look it up,” Corso told The Athletic in 2018.
When ESPN hired Saban, 73, as an on-air analyst last February, there was a lot of speculation as to what that meant for Corso, who turns 90 in August. At the time, the network was adamant it would allow Corso to leave the show he helped build on his own terms.
The time has come. The terms seem to have been made. And fans get one final headgear selection, as Corso’s pick remains the show’s centerpiece and is synonymous with college football Saturdays.
