Mr College football
by GEORGE SOMERVILLE
ESPN announced this week that long-time college football broadcaster Lee Corso will retire following his final show on Saturday, August 30th, which will be week one of the new college football season. This final show will bring to an end a 38-year broadcasting career.
The announcement got us thinking at The Touchdown about the legacy Coach Corso leaves on the college game.
The term “legend” is significantly overused these days, with “G.O.A.T” status freely handed out. However, these superlatives are appropriate for the chosen few who have changed their profession beyond recognition.
Coach Lee Corso is undoubtedly in this exclusive group. He is both a legend and the G.O.A.T.
Corso quickly became the face of a pre-game sports show. A show the producers of which promptly realised they had captured lightning in a bottle when the broadcast came from a college Campus in front of a live student audience. It was and remains must-watch TV.
Corso fed off the energy from the live student audience, and alongside his fast-talking, wise-cracking style, a star was born.
However, it wasn’t until Lee Corso decided one Saturday to wear the mascot headgear of the team he picked to win the game that TV magic was born.
the Headgear Phenomenon
The first headgear selection came at the end of the show being broadcast live from Columbus, Ohio ahead of the Buckeyes matchup against Penn State in 1996.
With that selection of the Buckeyes and adornment of the mascot head, little did Corso, ESPN or the fans watching live and on TV realise that this would kickstart a Saturday morning institution. A phenomenon began that day that generations of fans would continue to watch for the next four decades.
So far, Corso has made 430 headgear selections and has an exceptional 67% win record, proving that as a pundit, he really does know what he is talking about. But it does beg the question—why is he so good at picking winners?
Corso the Football Coach
So why is Lee Corso so successful as a college football pundit?
There is no doubt that Corso has a spectacular on-screen personality. However, his ability to scrutinise and analyse is much more than just someone who studies the game. Corso knows the game inside out and has been involved in college football for 72 years!
Lee Corso played quarterback at Florida State from 1953 to 1957.
Here are some fun facts about Corso while at college: He was offered a pro baseball contract with the Brooklyn Dodgers but turned it down to play football for the Seminoles. While at FSU, his roommate was Burt Reynolds, whose football career was sidelined by his becoming a generational acting talent!
Corso’s career as a coach started immediately after his playing days ended when he became a General Assistant with the Seminoles in Tallahassee.
Corso then became a positional coach at Maryland and Navy before getting the head coaching position at Louisville.
After 3 years in Louisville, Corso moved to become head coach at Indiana a position he held for 9 years. Corso had a final season in college at Northern Illinois before moving to the UFL in 1985.
A Saturday morning legacy like no other
Coach Corso joined ESPN in 1987 as an analyst on a show called College Gameday. Back then, the show was studio-based and didn’t move to the live campus format we know today until 1993.
Corso’s response to fellow game pickers who didn’t pick in line with his thoughts was “not so fast my friend” which became his catch phrase repeated by thousands of fans every Saturday for nearly forty years.
Which all adds to the legend of College Gameday.
Across America and now, thankfully, here in the UK and many other countries globally, College Gameday is a staple of gameday mornings (and afternoons) every Saturday in the Fall. While other networks have tried to usurp Gameday with their own pregame show, the ESPN show remains the undisputed leader on a Saturday.
While there has been conjecture about Corso’s future for many years now – he suffered a stroke in 2009 – he has continued to be at the centre and the undoubted star of the Saturday morning show.
The show has never had a greater audience than now, helped by the recent additions of Nick Saban and Pat McAfee, however viewership over the three hours is never higher than during the last ten minutes of the show when Corso and the rest of the pundits make their picks culminating in Corso’s mascot head picks.
College Gameday is unlike any other pre-game show and has been peerless throughout its nearly 40-year reign. It truly is a show like no other and can rightly claim to be unique, something that is nearly impossible in modern sports broadcasting.
A large portion of this success can be laid at the door of Lee Corso.
Not so fast my friend
Since that first mascot head pick between Ohio State and Penn State in 1996, Corso has made 430 mascot headgear picks (per ESPN PR).
Of those 430 picks, Corso has picked 69 different teams. During his 38 years, Corso has picked Ohio State the most (45 times) followed by Alabama (38), LSU (25), Florida (22) and Oregon (21).
Coach Corso has picked three teams on multiple occasions with no losses : USC (17-0), Virginia Tech (4-0) & North Dakota State (3-0).
In 1999, Corso had a perfect season, recording 11 successful winning picks over 0 losses.
Happy Retirement Coach!
The outpouring of tributes to Lee Corso this week tells us all we need to know about his impact on the sports world.
Unusually, it didn’t just come from his ESPN colleagues. Tributes flooded in from journalists across all broadcasters, teams he has covered and most of all from fans. It seems that everyone wanted to let our Saturday morning “grandfather” know how much he meant to us all.
His close friend and Saturday morning “wing-man” Kirk Herbstreit was unsurprisingly one of the first to pay tribute to the man he has worked side by side with for nearly four decades.
“Coach Corso has had an iconic run in broadcasting, and we’re all lucky to have been around to witness it. He has taught me so much throughout our time together, and he’s been
like a second father to me. It has
been my absolute honor to have the best seat in the house to watch Coach put on that mascot head each week”.
At 89, Lee Corso will be seen one last time on our screens in August. It will be a tribute for the ages and not one to be missed.
But beyond that, you know fine well Corso will still be on his couch in Orlando every Saturday shouting “not so fast my friend” when he disagrees with a Nick Saban pick!
We wish you a long and happy retirement Coach!
Footnote
My love for College Gameday stretches back to trips to the US in the late 90s and early 00s. Watching this crazed man cause chaos in front of an even more crazed audience was unlike anything I had ever seen before. I was hooked.
However, it was in 2015 on my first visit to Tuscaloosa that I got to see the Lee Corso experience live for the first time. Sometimes the experience doesn’t match the anticipation, but College Gameday Live was as fantastic as I had hoped. I still have my Gameday sign from that first visit.
My next time seeing Gameday live was in 2019, again in Tuscaloosa, when that fantastic and soon-to-be National Champions, the LSU Tigers, rolled into T-Town for what was quite probably the game of the century. Corso picked the Tigers to a loud chorus of boos but you will recall that he got the pick right.
While I have met many college football personalities, sadly, I have never met Corso. For my two behind-the-scenes visits to Gameday (Dublin and Atlanta for the SEC Championship game), Coach was not present, which adds to the aura and legend of the great man. I can’t imagine that anyone has contributed more to my love for college football than Lee Corso.
Thank you, Coach.
GEORGE SOMERVILLE
COLLEGE FOOTBALL WRITER
GEORGE IS A LONG STANDING FANATIC OF LIFE AND FOOTBALL IN THE DEEP SOUTH AND WRITES HIS WEEKLY COLUMN CALLED “IT’S ONLY SEC” FOR THE TOUCHDOWN. HE IS ALSO CO-HOST AND ONE THIRD OF THE COLLEGE CHAPS PODCAST, THE UK’S FIRST PODCAST DEDICATED TO THE COLLEGE GAME.