Long-Time College Football Announcer Says Lee Corso Made His Dreams Come True, 38 Years Ago

“Appreciate you, young man.” With all due respect to “Not so fast, my friend,” those aren’t the first words that jump to mind when CFB fans think of Lee Corso. In the business world, those words are more significant than any mascot. They were the first words we ever heard from Corse. And on Saturday, the 90-year-old coach said it for the final time on ‘College GameDay’, bowing out after nearly four decades as the show’s heartbeat.

When the lights first came on in 1987, ESPN rolled out a brand-new studio show previewing the day’s college football slate. It was called ‘College GameDay’. The host was a familiar face in Tim Brando, paired with Beano Cook, a walking encyclopedia of college football. And then there was Corso—the former Indiana coach with quick wit and sharper instincts. After his first show, Brando remembers the moment like it was branded into his memory. This week, he posted a 38-year-old picture of the show, marking the moment: “Have a great retirement Lee! Ya helped make my dreams come true!”

ESPN’s Ryan McGee added his own story, painting the backdrop of a football-crazed house in Greenville, South Carolina, where his father worked as an ACC football official. “When ‘College GameDay’ debuted Sept. 5, 1987, I was a high school student… my role at the house was to get up Saturday mornings and make sure the VCR was rolling on Dad’s game that day so he could break down the film when we got home from church on Sunday.” That Saturday morning, a new ESPN show popped up on the screen. For McGee, seeing Brando, Cook, and “that guy who used to coach at Indiana” became a ritual that would carry into his college years.

Lee Corso himself knew what he was stepping into. Brando once recalled the words Corso used at his audition: “Sweetheart, I’m here for the duration. This show is going to be the trigger for your career and my career. I’m going to be the Dick Vitale of college football. Football doesn’t have one. And this show is going to be my vehicle.” The power of that statement back then seems almost prophetic now. While Vitale sometimes wore out his welcome in hoops, Corso somehow never did. Even after his stroke in 2009, when words came slower, the country leaned in closer.

By then, he wasn’t just the funny guy with mascot heads. He was the game’s mystic. Corso’s GameDay picks became appointment television, and with a 69% success rate over his career, fans treated him like a sage. McGee wrote, “My roommates and I rose groggily on Saturday mornings to see whether Corso picked our Vols to win that day before stumbling out the dorm doors to grab a cheeseburger and head to the Neyland Stadium student section. If he said Tennessee was going to win, we declared him a genius.” That blend of showmanship and credibility made him larger than life.

And that’s why the goodbye feels so heavy. In a business where polish often overshadows personality, Lee Corso never hid behind a script. He was authentic, whether cracking jokes, fumbling through analysis, or slipping on the wrong mascot head. “In a business full of phony, Lee Corso has always been the genuine article. And in a world full of awful, Lee Corso has always been fun.”

‘Not so fast, my friend’: Lee Corso’s final picks were pure magic

If there was any doubt about Lee Corso’s sendoff, he silenced it in the most fitting way possible—by absolutely crushing his final slate of picks. At 90 years old, in his last appearance on ESPN’s ‘College GameDay’, Corso went a perfect 6-for-6. It wasn’t the safe chalkboard type of day either. He took risks, and his boldest call turned out to be a parting masterpiece.

Corso’s upset special was as personal as it was daring. He picked unranked Florida State—his alma mater, where he played cornerback back in the 1950s—as a roughly two-touchdown underdog to take down No. 8 Alabama. Some laughed, some shook their heads. Corso didn’t care. He said simply, he had to go with the Seminoles to pull off the outright win. By nightfall, Florida State had steamrolled Alabama 31–17, turning what many thought was a sentimental slip into a prophetic exclamation point.

The internet, of course, had its fun before the game. One X user mocked the pick, posting that Corso was “ending his professional career with probably the worst take of his career.” Hours later, that same post was branded with a perfect Community Note: “not so fast, my friend.” You couldn’t script it better.