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Not So Fast: Why Corso resonates with CFB fans
Lee Corso didn’t become synonymous with college football for being the greatest analyst the game has ever seen. He wasn’t an all-time coach, nor did he ever reach the professional level as a player.
Corso will forever be intertwined with the sport because he loved college football as much as the fans did. You’d be hard-pressed to find a college football fan that didn’t love Corso right back.
ESPN announced yesterday Corso will retire from “College GameDay”after Week 1 of the 2025 college football season. His final headgear selection will come shortly after his 90th (!) birthday.
Corso has been with the show since it first aired in 1987. For almost 30 years, his headgear picks have been a Saturday staple — since the very first time he donned the mascot head of Brutus Buckeye in 1996.
He wore that Brutus head 44 more times, the most of any of his mascot picks. And if you’re curious, Corso wasn’t all that inaccurate on his selections, hitting on over 66 percent. Don’t let the gimmick fool you: Corso lived and breathed football.
- Nearly four decades at ESPN. Almost three decades coaching football before that. And a playing career that still has him ranked third on Florida State’s all-time interceptions list. Corso really did it all.
- It feels somewhat ironic after all he’s accomplished that Corso will be best remembered for simply emulating mascots. But nothing encapsulates Corso’s love for the game better than those 30 seconds at the end of “College GameDay” every Saturday. His joy for the sport was contagious, not just across the ESPN desk but across millions of households around the world.
Corso owns a highlight reel full of iconic moments, perhaps none more memorable than his pick between SMU and Houston in 2011. Known to fake out the “GameDay” crowd, Corso picked up an SMU megaphone before tossing it over the desk with a profane exclamation attached.
“Ah, f– it!”
Not so fast, my friend. Onward:
News to Know
Rodgers unloads on Jets, Glenn
Aaron Rodgers criticized the way the Jets handled his release this offseason in an appearance on “The Pat McAfee Show” yesterday. Rodgers lamented that he “flew across the country on (his) own dime” to meet with new coach Aaron Glenn, expecting a conversation about his future, only to be quickly told New York was moving in another direction at quarterback. “I felt there wasn’t an ample amount of respect in that meeting,” Rodgers said. The 41-year-old also said he is “open to anything and attached to nothing” regarding his playing future, including retirement. Full comments here.
More news
- Florida State canceled home sporting events through this weekend after at least two people were killed and six injured in a campus shooting yesterday.
- Rangers forward Artemi Panarin and Madison Square Garden Sports, the company that owns the team, paid financial settlements to a Rangers employee last year after she alleged that Panarin sexually assaulted her, Katie Strang reports. More details here.
- Angel City hired Bayern Munich’s Alexander Straus as its new head coach, officially starting June 1.
- Yankees second baseman Jazz Chisholm Jr. ripped an umpire in a since-deleted post on X after being ejected against the Rays, a violation of MLB rules. The league is looking into the matter.
- Bucks guard Damian Lillard has been cleared of a blood clot in his right calf and returned to practice. Read more about his speedy recovery here.
- The PWHL is expected to announce a new franchise inVancouver next week. The team is expected to play in 2025-26.
Chaos, Continued: Is this normal for the NBA?
We wrote on Sunday about how this NBA season went completely off the rails: multiple coach firings by playoff contenders in the final weeks, jaw-dropping trades and a couple of superteam flops. But that wasn’t the end of it.
Literally an hour after losing to the Mavericks in the 9-10 Play-In game Wednesday night, the Kings — the same ones who not long ago installed a giant purple light beam just to broadcast their good vibes into the ether — parted with the architect of their recent turnaround, general manager Monte McNair.
- Two Aprils ago, McNair was named the NBA’s Executive of the Year after hiring Mike Brown, who became Coach of the Year and then was fired last December — six months after signing a contract extension.
- Just 12 hours after the loss to the Mavericks (speaking of chaos …), Sacramento finalized a deal to bring back its former VP of basketball ops, Scott Perry, as GM. Whiplash, anyone?
Oh, and earlier this week, the Pelicans fired executive VP David Griffin, swiftly replacing him with Hall of Famer Joe Dumars, and the Suns fired coach Mike Budenholzer after one “embarrassing” season.
Again: This is only since Sunday! So we asked our John Hollinger: Is it just recency bias, or is this an abnormal level of NBA chaos?
💬 It’s not the chaos so much as the timing of a chaos. Coaching changes are an inevitable part of the business, with life expectancies only growing shorter. But firing a coach in the final weeks of the season is basically unheard of. And for it to happen twice? By two teams that combined to win nearly a hundred games? And for one of them be a world champion coach? Yes, that was totally bonkers.
The rest of this week (such as changes in New Orleans and Sacramento), while chaotic, falls into the more normal parameters of flailing franchises throwing spaghetti at walls at the end of another failed season. It’s just part of the mid-April drill at this point, and based on what I’ve heard we’ll probably see a couple more moves before things settle down.
Reality check with a side of intel? Delicious. 👀 Also be sure to check out John’s playoffs preview and predictions (free for Pulse readers!), where he explains why there’s more mystery in this field than we’ve become accustomed to.
What to Watch
📺 MLB: Dodgers at Rangers | 8:05 p.m. ET on MLB Network
Yoshinobu Yamamoto and Jacob deGrom will take the mound to kick off a three-game set in Arlington. Tune in to a potential World Series preview while you’re waiting for the NBA and NHL playoffs to start.
📺 NBA: Mavericks at Grizzlies | 9:30 p.m. ET on ESPN
On one hand, these teams are fighting for a chance to get bounced in the first round by the Thunder. On the other, they’re battling to see who can put a monumental front office decision in the rearview mirror quicker. Intriguing either way.
Pulse Picks
How did the GM role on college football staffs go from a largely anonymous logistics-based recruiting position to “one of the five most important people” to any program? Sam Khan Jr. explains in a must-read piece today.
Sidney Crosby may be soft-spoken, but he’s the best leader in hockey. Another fascinating feature from our new leadership and personal growth vertical, Peak, which you can follow here.
Pablo Maurer takes you inside the chaos at Loudoun United — a USL club putting together its best season ever despite crumbling facilities, rampant uncertainty and players forced to wash their own kits.
The fate of the Thunder’s dream season may rest on a pair of (very tall) shoulders. Anthony Slater explains how OKC is banking on a twin-tower approach.
With the advent of torpedo bats, has hitting development in baseball finally caught up to pitching development? The Athletic’s MLB staff did a deep dive on the latest innovations in the hitting landscape.
The Lakers have shot up NBA title odds boards. Here’s why sportsbooks will be strongly rooting against Los Angeles in the playoffs.
Most-clicked in the newsletter yesterday: The ranking of the top MLB front offices, as voted on by decision-makers across the sport.
Most-read on the website yesterday: Katie Strang’s report on Artemi Panarin.
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(Top photo: Joshua S. Kelly / USA Today Sports)
