Credit: ESPN
By Sean Keeley on

Lee Corso ended his legendary headgear pick tradition on ESPN’s College GameDay the same way he started it, donning the head of Brutus Buckeye to indicate he was picking Ohio State to win the day’s game.

It was a predictable way to conclude his tenure as an ESPN college football analyst, which began back in 1987, but that didn’t make it any less satisfying. If anything, predictability and repetition were large parts of what made Corso such an indelible figure for college football fans over the decades.

Saturday’s season-opening GameDay promised to be a showcase for Corso’s legacy, and it didn’t disappoint. The show began bright and early with longtime host Rece Davis letting us know that if we thought this was just like any other first GameDay of the season, “Not so fast, my friend.”

While the panel of analysts looked as they usually do in recent years, Corso’s tuxedo signaled that he was treating this as a very special occasion.

After offering a surprising pick for who’ll win the national title this year (LSU), he continued to be feted throughout the three-hour broadcast (and even during rival Fox’s Big Noon Kickoff).

It was, admittedly, hard to understand the 90-year-old at times. Time caught up with Corso a while ago, and a stroke a few years back limited his ability to work full-time. For anyone who has had a chance to be behind the scenes at GameDay in recent years, you know that he moves gingerly, sits penitently during commercials, and often takes breaks to be able to make it to his headgear pick at the end. However, Corso powered through this Saturday’s show, giving it all he had in the tank to send audiences and those in the crowd home happy.

There were requisite tribute segments, such as a rundown of how the headgear tradition started and roundtable discussions about what Corso meant to everyone else on the team.

As the show wound down and Corso’s final headgear pick neared, viewers were curious to see what Davis meant when he said on Friday that it would be unlike anything we’d seen before. Many speculated that Corso would dot the i with the Ohio State Marching Band. That may have very well been the plan, but in his condition, it’s unlikely he would have been able to do so.

Instead, Corso sat at the GameDay desk, flanked by Kirk Herbstreit and Pat McAfee, and donned Brutus Buckeye’s head one last time.

It was a surreal scene, with a sold-out stadium giving a standing ovation to a man wearing a tuxedo and a mascot head. In a way, that made it the most quintessential college football moment possible to complete Corso’s iconic broadcasting career. The man, who in many ways became a mascot for the sport and company, went out being celebrated as such.

GameDay will continue, and college football will carry on. ESPN has said goodbye to so many people who were once institutions, and this is one more. But it’s fair to say that an era truly ended on Saturday. And you can mark it by way of Brutus Buckeye’s head.

About Sean Keeley

Along with writing for Awful Announcing and The Comeback, Sean is the Managing Editor for Comeback Media. Previously, he created the Syracuse blog Troy Nunes Is An Absolute Magician and wrote 'How To Grow An Orange: The Right Way to Brainwash Your Child Into Rooting for Syracuse.' He has also written non-Syracuse-related things for SB Nation, Curbed, and other outlets. He currently lives in Seattle where he is complaining about bagels. Send tips/comments/complaints to sean@thecomeback.com.

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