One hard and fast rule of football Saturdays at my house: always shower before Lee Corso makes his pick. I know, kind of an odd rule, but it exists. I know if I get past Corso putting on whatever elaborate costume, I’ve committed myself to college football for, at least, the next 14 hours. There’ll be no time for personal hygiene in that schedule.
The other thing I know is that the weekly Lee Corso pick is highly entertaining and impossible to replicate. Therein lies the problem that looms for ESPN; how does College Gameday, an immensely popular ESPN show, ever replace Lee Corso? Quick answer: they don’t.
It is no secret Corso’s age has caught up with him. The man is 87 years old and has been involved in some level of football for 64 years now. It is one reason I am a Lee Corso fan, I know the man loves college football as much as me. But age remains undefeated, it is coming for all of us. The difference is that most of us don’t age in front of the eyes of the world.
If you are a GameDay viewer, you are aware of Corso’s age and health. A very serious stroke in 2009 left him with lingering speech issues. When he started on the show in 1987 he was “retired coach Lee Corso”. It’s been 35 years now, one only needs a remote control and basic math skills to understand his Gameday role is nearing an end. But, how do you end the career of the man who literally does the thing that ends your show each week?
This question is being discussed more this week because of Saturday’s Week Zero edition of College Gameday. With anchor Rece Davis in ESPN’s studios, the other show contributors were in remote locations. That meant Corso was doing his portions of the show from a makeshift county fair in his backyard. Corso was often difficult to understand and got tripped up on many of his sentences.
This is no new development but it was certainly made worse by the design of Saturday’s show. Davis was tasked with hosting from a location and weaving in the contributions of five different analysts in five different locations. Some of those analysts don’t fully realize what Davis absolutely knows; due to delay, your interjections outside of your scripted time to speak often result in a complete train wreck of dialogue. Only the incredible patience and talent of Rece Davis keeps the show on the rails.
It is with this backdrop that Corso’s performance is being judged and prompting many to suggest his time has come. Those not calling for his complete removal suggest maybe he could still just do the picks segment. Corso’s role has diminished greatly already, often disappearing from the set for segments at a time. What would be the reaction if the first time we saw Corso was during the picks segment? What if ESPN just brought him on to incite the crowd with his headgear pick? Does ESPN then just make him a sad sideshow?
I am sometimes made uncomfortable by Corso’s appearances much in the same way I was with Muhammad Ali late in his life. Ali would be paraded out at events, unable to walk and talk, Parkinson’s Disease leaving his body a shell of the lethal machine it once was. Some of those times, in my awkward discomfort, I had to look away from Ali. In the same way, I cringe when Corso gets tongue tied and Kirk Herbstreit or Davis have to lovingly bail him out.
Those actions show you how beloved Corso is with his co-hosts. Herbstreit speaks of how he and the former college head coach have a relationship like a father and son. That is evident in the way Herbstreit always seems ready to jump in and help Corso through his stumbles. Often Herbstreit has played along as straight man in Corso’s headgear pick script. There are even times he’s had to comfort Corso in times of heavy emotion.
Corso’s exit won’t just be jarring for the audience that loves the character he has become, it will likely be devastating for those who have become his TV family. You can bet they don’t want Corso to walk away until he is absolutely ready to be finished with College GameDay.
The other issue at hand is that the most popular portion of the entire show is lost when Corso departs. As ESPN’s Paul Finebaum points out in this week’s Jason Barrett Podcast, there is no replacing Corso or his pick. Is there a single current college coach you could imagine walking off the sidelines and onto the Gameday set and pulling off a headgear pick?
The highly entertaining contributions of Pat McAfee on GameDay allowed you to consider him as the comedic foil that could replace Corso but not for a minute did you consider him continuing the headgear pick. It would be sacrilegious for anyone to try it. The minute Corso retires is the minute so many of us don’t ever start our college football Saturdays the same way again.
There is no shortage of people calling for ESPN to end Lee Corso’s time on the network. It seems the critics feel as though Corso’s age has dictated there is no longer a place for him in college football. I understand the concern but the freshly showered college football Saturday version of me looks at starting my day without Corso’s pick and says: “Not so fast, my friend.”
Ryan Brown is a columnist for Barrett Sports Media, and a co-host of the popular sports audio/video show ‘The Next Round’ formerly known as JOX Roundtable, which previously aired on WJOX in Birmingham. You can find him on Twitter @RyanBrownLive and follow his show @NextRoundLive.
