We are approaching the home stretch. In less than 24 hours, Lee Corso will be making his final appearance as an analyst on ESPN's College GameDay. Corso has been with the show since the beginning, doing the first-ever headgear pick at Ohio State some 29 years ago. It is only fitting that he gets to go back to Columbus one final time for all of the college football world to celebrate his career.
From his beginnings as a two-way player at Florida State in the 1950s, to his run leading college football programs such as Louisville and Indiana, Corso is best known for his days on the desk at ESPN. His childlike enthusiasm for the greatest and dumbest sport on the planet has left an indelible impact on college football itself. He is every bit the fabric for anyone ever associated with it.
So in the lead-up to his big day, his best friend and colleague Kirk Herbstreit proposed a toast to him.
"Whether you're the makeup artist, or Rece Davis, everybody in between, you've just lightened everybody up. You lifted everybody up. And you've done that, I'm sure as a coach, but our experience with you, for me, the last 30 years. It's like, I've never seen you have a bad day ... If you have a bad day, you never really show you're having a bad day. You're always positive, and you're the backbone of what this show has been about."
Corso's unbreakable spirit is something that everyone can learn from in some way, shape or form.
A toast to Coach Corso pic.twitter.com/mbcR1aVFA8
— Kirk Herbstreit (@KirkHerbstreit) August 29, 2025
To think there will only be one headgear pick left for Corso, it is hard to believe it is coming to an end.
Kirk Herbstreit proposes the first of many toasts to Lee Corso in Week 1
What is left for there to say about Corso? He has been every bit the college football lifer. Win or lose, nobody ever had a bad thing to say about the man. He never conducted himself like he was better than everyone, which is why he was the perfect shepherd to bring new fans to the wacky, weird and wonderful sport of college football. College football is for everyone, as Corso is a man of the people.
The program will carry on without him, but his legacy will live on. The show will have to adapt because Corso's contribution to it cannot ever be replicated. It is a story some 30-plus years in the making, one coming down to the last paragraph in its final chapter. Nobody wants it to end, but it has to. To be frank, what a better way to finish it than to go out with a bang of a Week 1 matchup up in Columbus?
No matter if he dons Brutus Buckeye's head one last time, or if he stuns America by sporting Hook 'Em's horns in and around The Horseshoe, surely, it will be amazing. What other college football lifer can captivate a massive, nationwide audience quite like Corso can? Above all else, Herbstreit's comments about him being a genuinely good person is what really matters the most in his legacy.
Congratulations to such a brilliant career, Lee! Everyone us is a fan of college football because of you!