Long before he donned headgear for ESPN College GameDay on Saturday afternoons, Lee Corso was a Navy assistant football coach.
After spending six years as the quarterbacks coach at Maryland, Corso was lured to Annapolis to coach defensive backs for the Midshipmen. It was a natural fit. Corso played the position at Florida State in the 1950s, during which he set the school’s interceptions record and was roommates with future film icon Burt Reynolds.
The chance to coach at a service academy was too great a lure for Corso and he spent three years with the Middies from 1966-68.
After that, it was off to the head-coaching ranks at Louisville.
Corso became world-famous for his work on ESPN’s College GameDay for nearly 40 years. On Thursday, the network announced Corso would retire this year after one last appearance on the show on Aug. 30
Navy sent out its congratulations to Corso on his retirement on social media.
What a career, Congrats Coach Corso! #GoNavy | #RollGoats https://t.co/BfbmabvyaN pic.twitter.com/N2DixRAFM2
— Navy Football (@NavyFB) April 17, 2025
Army did the same.
Congrats Lee Corso on a great career with @CollegeGameDay 👏👏👏
We are grateful for your impact on the @ArmyNavyGame as well as all of college football! https://t.co/bgp75BDSht pic.twitter.com/vQW61h8Uly
— ArmyWestPoint Sports (@GoArmyWestPoint) April 17, 2025
Per ESPN, Corso was on the GameDay set for nine different Army-Navy games, along with coaching in three of them. ESPN also noted that Corso never picked against the Midshipmen.
Corso turns 90 years old in August and his move into retirement will be highlighted during the Aug. 30 broadcast. The three-hour show (9 a.m. – noon ET, ESPN & ESPNU) will honor and celebrate Corso’s historic career in addition to previewing all the day’s big games.
For generations of fans, Corso was an integral part of their Saturday afternoon during college football season.
He joined GameDay in 1987 as a part-time contributor and didn’t become one of the show’s full-time analysts until 1989. He’s spent 38 years with the show and he’s the only remaining member of the original show.
The game will also mark his last “headgear” pick. Each GameDay, Corso donned the headgear for the team he believes will win the biggest game of the day, which is usually where the show is being broadcast.
He made his first headgear pick on Nov. 13, 1993, during the show’s first road trip when No. 2 Notre Dame hosted No. 1 Florida State. He picked the Seminoles and donned an FSU hat in doing so.
After graduating from FSU, he quickly moved into coaching, serving as an assistant with Florida State, Maryland and Navy before he became a head coach at Louisville in 1969. In 1973, he took over the head-coaching job at Indiana, followed by a one-year stint at Northern Illinois in 1984. He wrapped up his coaching career with the USFL’s Orlando Renegades in 1985.
As a college football head coach, he went 73-85-6 and led Louisville to a pair of Missouri Valley Conference titles, along with a season-ending national ranking in 1972.
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