Lee Corso is officially calling it a career on ESPN’s College GameDay after 38 years and a tremendously successful run of headgear picks.
ESPN announced his last show will be on August 30th — the first full Saturday of college football games in 2025, but we don’t know which campus will host Corso’s final broadcast. ESPN has yet to announce a location and there are no shortage of options.
So while the show plots out Corso’s finale, let’s look at some of the best options for College GameDay to set up shop on the Week 1 slate.
This makes a ton of sense. It’s arguably the biggest game of the weekend and Florida State is where Corso played college football from 1953-57 as a cornerback and quarterback. But the location has some obvious downsides. For starters, Florida State fans are still furious with Kirk Herbstreit over his defense of excluding the school from the College Football Playoff two years ago. And a game featuring Alabama would put more of the spotlight on Nick Saban, who is a member of the GameDay panel now.
ESPN might not want to give either storyline a chance to rain on Corso’s parade.
Texas at Ohio State
It’ll be Arch Manning’s first start as the official QB1 of the Longhorns against the reigning national champions. Lee Corso’s love of Brutus is well known and this matchup makes far too much sense to discount — it was his first-ever headgear pick, after all.
But there are some other contenders we can’t look past.
LSU at Clemson
Corso loves a Saturday morning in the south. An LSU-Clemson matchup will have a ton of fireworks and the broadcast wouldn’t have to worry about any subplots distracting from what’s sure to be a three-hour Corso lovefest.
Montana State at Oregon
As much as a 90-year-old Corso riding off into retirement on the back of the Oregon Duck’s motorcycle might sound incredible, there are probably safer options. We’re sure the Duck will make it out to wherever Corso is for his final show.
Old Dominion at Indiana
Is this a great game on paper? No, definitely not. Is Corso — a former Hoosiers head coach — beloved in Bloomington, where Indiana football is having a major resurgence under head coach Curt Cignetti? Yes. Yes he is.
Holy Cross at Northern Illinois
Corso coached the Huskies for one season in 1984, going 4-6-1, so he’s probably not headed back to DeKalb, but you can’t totally rule it out.
Eastern Kentucky at Louisville
The Cardinals were the first college team to hire Corso as head coach. He spent four seasons in Louisville going 28-11-3 with two first-place finishes and a Pasadena Bowl appearance.
