Chris Fallica saw it coming.
When Lee Corso officially announced his retirement earlier this month, Fallica, known to most as “The Bear,” wasn’t surprised. After two decades at ESPN and now a regular on Fox’s Big Noon Kickoff, Fallica still had a distant but familiar view of Corso’s late-career run on College GameDay.
“Anyone who has been paying attention the last couple of years has kind of seen it coming,” Fallica said on the Awful Announcing Podcast with Brandon Contes. “It’s sad in a way. Because it’s the end of an era.”
And really, it is.
Corso, the man who helped turn GameDay into college football’s cultural anchor, will step away after Week 1 of the 2025 season, just a few weeks after his 90th birthday. ESPN is allowing him to go out on his own terms, a quiet but meaningful gesture after years of slowed speech, shortened segments, and behind-the-scenes speculation about how much longer he could go.
Fallica didn’t need to be on the set to see it.
“Just being home during the playoffs and kind of seeing the limiting of how they were using him and the segments he was in, it’s time,” Fallica said. “He’s going to be 90 years old by the time the season starts.”
It’s not a cold assessment; it’s coming from someone who owes a lot to Corso.
“I spent 20-something years with the guy. He gave me the nickname ‘The Bear,’” Fallica said. “So, I owe it all to him.”
He remembers the uncertainty years ago, when Corso suffered a stroke, long before the recent signs of decline.
“It’s funny, when he had the stroke how ever many years ago it was, it was kind of like one of those things, ‘Do we think he’s going to be able to make it back, and be a part of GameDay?’ And fortunately, he was,” Fallica said. “I mean, we were having conversations back then, like, ‘What are we going to do?’ ‘Who’s going to replace Lee if he can’t come back?'”
The question now isn’t just when Corso will step away. It’s what happens next. Does ESPN try to replace him? Or does the headgear tradition retire along with its creator?
Fallica isn’t sure what direction the show will take, and he’s not pretending to know. But in his view, Corso’s role isn’t one you can just fill.
His answer now is the same as it was then.
“My guess, again, I don’t know anything, but I would assume that they’re just going to leave the set as is now,” Fallica says. “There really isn’t anyone who can replace Lee.”
Fallica expects Corso’s finale to come full circle.
“I’m assuming again, you’re probably going to have a first headgear at Ohio State and a last headgear at Ohio State,” he says. “I would guess GameDay would probably join us in Columbus, where Big Noon will be for Ohio State-Texas.”
Florida State, Corso’s alma mater, is another possibility. So is Miami, his birthplace. But Fallica sees the symmetry in returning to where it all began, donning the Brutus Buckeye head.
“Lee would always joke when there was a toss-up type pick on the show, ‘Never forget your first love,’ would always be a punchline for him,” Fallica said. “My guess would be that he and the show would not forget his first love, which is Brutus and the Ohio State headgear.”
If Fallica were a betting man, he’d put his money on Columbus.
Listen to the full episode of the Awful Announcing Podcast featuring Chris Fallica beginning Friday, April. 25. Subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and wherever you get your podcasts. For more content, subscribe to AA’s YouTube page.