This piece is co-written by Kate Sánchez & Matt Donahue.
Coach Lee Corso has hosted College GameDay for 38 years. A legend in college football, his joy and love of the game (and his mascot head pick) have come to define the experience. Across many of ESPN’s segments these last two weeks, every commentator had a version of the same thing to say: Lee Corso has done more to popularize the sport than anyone else.
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In my freshman year at the University of Texas, College GameDay came to campus. We had just come off a run for the National Championship, falling short to Nick Saban’s Alabama. Being in the GameDay crowd is an electric experience; it connects you to everyone around you, and it makes you see just how important college football is as a community.
While football had long been how I connected with my dad, something about being at the school we watched together, and celebrating with the rest of the campus, showed me the impact the sport can have. And Lee Corso has been at the head of that community.
A former linebacker for Florida State who held the record for most interceptions until Deion Sanders tied it, Coach Corso then took to developing talent at Maryland. It was there that he helped lead the integration of the ACC by bringing Darryl Hill onto the team, before coaching at Louisville, Indiana, and Northern Illinois University. Then, in 1987, he left coaching behind and started as an analyst for ESPN’s College Gameday.
Coach Corso rooted for the underdog in his last College GameDay show, and each one won big.
While the pre-game event was already on the way to becoming beloved among college campuses and viewers, it was in 1996 when he and Kirk Herbstreit worked to get approval from Ohio State to wear the mascot’s head when he picked the team as his projected winner against Penn State. He donned the Brutus head, and the rest, all 431 headgear picks, have become history (with Coach Corso ending his College GameDay career at 287-144).
Coach Corso’s signature line, “not so fast, my friend,” and donning the mascot head/helmet/hat of a team to kick off a day of college football came to define the sport in a way nothing else really has. As hosts changed and the show’s format grew larger, this week’s episode brought in 3.5 million viewers.
But it was always Corso’s pick that kept everyone waiting, which this weekend showcased as the viewership rose to 5.1 million viewers for GameDay’s last 15 minutes. Sure, it means something when other people pick your team, but when Coach Corso did, that was special.
But Coach Corso’s legacy wasn’t just on the television screen every Saturday morning; it also helped define EA Sports’ series of college football games. While the video game franchise found its rebirth in 2024’s College Football 25, the franchise reached millions of football fans from 1933 (first called Bill Walsh College Football) until it sunset in 2013. One of the ways the series captured audiences, inspired rivalries, and made you feel like you were truly in the game was by featuring Coach Corso.
Much like seeing the godfather of college football put on your favorite team’s mascot head before a big game, having him pick your team in the video game gave you the hype you needed over the friends you were competing against.
Lee Corso’s involvement in EA Sports’ college football games was one of the things that made them feel real.
While John Madden’s deft hand was responsible for capturing the authenticity of the NFL to life in EA Sports’ Madden franchise, it’s no stretch to say that Lee Corso helped bring college football to life in NCAA Football from 2006 to 2011. The college football video games started in 1993, right when Lee Corso’s College GameDay picked up in popularity and three years before the iconic pre-game headgear pick.
Still, there was something uniquely special about Coach Corso’s involvement that captured the GameDay experiences in the video game in a way we didn’t see before or since. When you step back and look at the height of the game’s popularity, it’s clear that Coach Corso helped define it, too.
We got the chance to ask the EA Sports College Football 26 team about Coach Corso. Seann Graddy, Executive Producer of College Football 26, responded to our request, “Lee Corso is synonymous with College Football. His love and passion for the sport were unprecedented and showed up in our living room every Saturday.”
Graddy continued, “He also played a huge role in our past College Football products as a voice, as a character, as your coach, suggesting plays, making a game pick with his iconic headgear selection, and providing the same level of authenticity and passion he brought to gameday. We are so proud to have partnered with Lee over the history of our games, and thank him for everything he has done for College Football.”
Whether you got a helmet or a mascot head, it mattered when Coach Corso picked you.
During his time working with EA Sports, Coach Corso did pre-game commentary with Kirk Herbstreit, which included his iconic headgear predictions. Additionally, Corso was also worked into the core mechanics of the video games, with the “Ask Corso” feature, which helped NCAA Football players with suggested plays to call next (effectively a college-equivalent of Madden NFL’s “Ask Madden” feature).
Leading up to Corso’s final episode of College GameDay, Matt Donahue and I started writing this article. And for him, Lee Corso picking your team was everything. It was bragging rights, it was his mom recognizing the guy from TV picking him for the win, but most importantly, it was the youthful excitement that Coach Corso brought to the franchise that you just didn’t get while managing salary caps in Madden NFL.
Pre-online Dynasty, playing against your friends came down to who was on the sticks right next to you. It was sitting in a room with eight of your friends, waiting to see who Lee Corso would pick, and the pressure of needing to live up to it.
For me, I waited in a crowd of Longhorns, hoping to the universe that Corso would pick us. For Matt, it was anticipating that pick in his living room, and as he got older, his locker room with his teammates, waiting to see who Lee Corso would pick. Both of us lived for that joy, and for Coach Corso, just in different ways.
The pageantry and the joy of the pre-game show have defined college football. During Coach Corso’s last show, Pat McAfee, the College GameDay co-host (podcaster and former West Virginia and Colts kicker), told the pre-show audience that Corso inspired him to be loud, excited, and, first and foremost, to bring entertainment.
Long-time host Kirk Herbstreit’s own loving relationship with Corso was also on display, while Desmond Howard, Rece Davis, and former Bama Head Coach, Nick Saban, all added their own declarations of care and respect for Corso’s long dedication to the game, on the field and behind the desk.
Lee Corso’s legacy is as large as College Football’s.
Add in the “Not So Fast, My Friend” documentary episode that ESPN released this week, and it’s clear how impactful Corso has been year after year, and game after game. Even the CFB subreddit held conversations about Corso’s retirement, highlighting the importance of the pre-game show and Lee Corso’s headgear pick. Some noted that even when they stopped watching the pre-game, they still tuned in for the last minutes to see which mascot head the Coach would put on.
But now that college football won’t have Coach Corso, we have to ask how the sport will be defined in this next chapter. A question made even more significant by the increased emphasis on pageantry we saw in EA Sports College Football 26. The importance that Lee Corso has cross-culturally and inter-generationally is matched by how invested college football players are in the video game itself. Whether it is the most recent additions or the past games, being on the cover of a college football game was a dream.
When EA Sports released its cover athletes for 2026, Alabama’s Ryan Williams and Ohio State’s Jeremiah Smith, we got a chance to see how much the game has meant to them. As Ryan Williams said in the announcement release, “As a lifelong fan of EA Sports games, being on the cover of College Football 26 is a dream come true. It was incredible to see myself in College Football 25 last year, and now to represent Alabama and share this moment with fans who’ve played EA Sports games for years is unreal.”
College football traditions brought to life in a way we’ve never experienced in the latest EA Sports CFB title. You can walk into the stadium to “Enter Sandman,” where the menu music and in-game soundtrack transform popular songs into marching band renditions. The development team even went the extra mile to incorporate real-life crowds performing school chants. At this point, Gameday is the closest it has ever been to being in the real-life stadium itself. We now have full rosters, coaches, expanded playbooks, and more, immersing the player in the college football experience even more.
The only real element missing is the pre-game show. With Madden NFL 26 creating its own version of special weekly reports, halftime, and pre-game coverage featuring Scott Hanson (the iconic voice of the Red Zone), we have to ask: Who will be the next voice of College Football?
Lee Corso may have joked during his last College GameDay that it felt like he had died. But the reality is that he’s still around to see how much we all loved him. Still, his retirement feels like football is changing. It’s no secret that the usage of College GameDay falls into the murky rights questions around ESPN properties, but how does a sport marked by Coach Corso keep his legacy alive? Or better yet, how does EA Sports fill the void that Corso’s retirement left?
We don’t have answers now, but we do know how Coach Lee Corso saw all of this: “It’s an entertainment business, sweetheart. Football is just the vehicle.” College GameDay will continue to entertain, and we will keep playing our Online Dynasties. Both will keep us competing, celebrating, and loving ball.
EA Sports College Football 26 is available now on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S.
