Not So Fast, Legendary ESPN Analyst Headed Back To Where It All Began For Week 1

The year was 1987. Sports broadcasting behemoth ESPN debuted a new weekly studio show that covered the biggest college football matchups of the day, called Game Day. On the air as a college football analyst was Lee Corso.

Corso later became an iconic college football prognosticator who was broadcast to living rooms and man caves across the country on Saturday mornings. By 1993, Corso and his cohosts turned College Gameday into a traveling road show.

In 1996, Corso and crew arrived in Columbus, Ohio, on October 5. For the first time, Corso donned the headgear of mascot Brutus Buckeye and picked the Buckeyes to defeat Penn State that day. Ohio State won 38-7.

A tradition was born.

Corso will give college football fans one last “not so fast, my friend,” and don the headgear of either Brutus Buckeye or Hook ‘Em, picking either the Buckeyes or Longhorns to win in Week 1.

With 430 headgear picks, Corso has an overall record of 286-144, a winning percentage of 66.5 percent. In 1999, Corso was perfect when donning the winning headgear, picking correctly in 11 games that season.

He has chosen the Buckeyes 45 times, the most of any team. Of those picks, Ohio State won 30 times. That’s a 66.67 winning percentage when picking the Buckeyes.

On the other sideline, Corso’s record when picking the Longhorns to win is 12-13.

Notable wins for Corso when picking the Longhorns to win include the 2006 BCS National Championship game. It was a 41-38 dramatic win for Texas to win the national title.

In 2023, Corso picked Texas to beat No. 5 Alabama in Tuscaloosa. The Longhorns won 34-24.

At age 90, Corso is a man who has been a fixture in college football as a player, a coach and a broadcaster for the last 75 years. He will retire on Aug. 30 when the College Game Day Show fades to black ahead of kickoff in Ohio Stadium. It will be the end of a distinguished broadcasting career for Corso, which has lasted for 38 years.

College football on Saturdays will not be the same. On Sunday, Aug. 31, we as football fans will realize the iconic Lee Corso donning the mascot headgear has come to an end with one final wave to grateful college football fans everywhere.

The year 1996 will call, saying they want Lee Corso back. So will we, wishing we could relive the past 29 seasons all over again and listening for that famous catchphrase “not so fast, my friend,”