Lee Corso retirement: Rece Davis expresses what ESPN icon means to him, college football

For the last decade, Rece Davis has hosted ESPN’s College GameDay on Saturday mornings. And in that time, he’s had a front-row seat for the always-entertaining and highly-anticipated weekly headgear pick from college football icon Lee Corso.

Now, after ESPN rocked the college football world Thursday morning by announcing the 89-year-old Corso’s final appearance on College GameDay will be the 2025 regular season debut Aug. 30th, Davis issued a touching tribute to Corso’s legacy and transformative impact on the sport and how its covered. Davis took to social media to do that.

“Lee Corso’s not only the cornerstone of College GameDay, he’s really a trailblazer for how the sport is covered. It was OK to have a laugh, it was OK to poke a little fun, it was OK to show your personality. And what Lee did really set the trend for the generations that have followed and continue to follow in covering college football,” Davis said in a nearly four-minute long video posted to X/Twitter. “It’s a sport really built on nostalgia and tradition, and there’s no greater or more iconic moment in the sport, in my judgment, than when Lee puts on that mascot head on Saturday mornings. It’s as if kickoffs aren’t really official until LC has made his pick.

What Lee Corso means to me. pic.twitter.com/vS2gg410dW

— Rece Davis (@ReceDavis) April 17, 2025

“In fact, when you walk around on campus on the Friday before College GameDay, that’s the No. 1 question: Who’s Corso going to pick? It’s because of something he’s taught us from the very beginning – ‘It’s entertainment, sweetheart.’ Football is our vehicle and man did he use that vehicle brilliantly.”

Over the past several years, as Corso has gotten up in age, ESPN has provided multiple moving tributes, including when Corso donned his 400th headgear during the 2023 season. Corso turned a weekly tradition of putting on headgear for whatever team he picks to win the marquee game of the day into must-see TV, much to the delight of college football fans everywhere. And when he did it for the 400th time, he brought out the waterworks from the rest of the crew on the set.

But for Davis, it was all the ways Corso impacted the lives of those around him, be it during his 38 years on College GameDay or his 15 years as a college football head coach. The former Florida State quarterback known as the “Sunshine Scooter” in the mid-1950s began his head coaching career at Louisville (1969-72) before spending a decade (1973-82) at Indiana and a one-year stint at Northern Illinois in 1984. His impact as a coach was never more evident than GameDay‘s first-ever live show in Bloomington on Oct. 26, 2024.

Rece Davis: Lee Corso ‘was not only the consummate entertainer, he was the consummate coach’

“If the mark of a coach is really the relationships that you build and develop during your time at a particular place, never was that success more evident than when College GameDay went to Indiana last year,” Davis continued. “A number of LC’s players came back just for a luncheon, just to spend time around, just to remind him just how much he’s meant in their lives. He was not only the consummate entertainer, he was the consummate coach. He sort of made it his life’s work to make sure people succeeded on the field, had joy on the field, and brought joy to them in their living rooms and through their television sets on Saturday mornings. And he certainly succeeded on both counts.”

But it was Corso’s role as an analyst on ESPN’s weekly Saturday morning pregame show that truly connected him to the world, and Davis in particular. The decade-long College GameDay host endearingly recalled how kind Corso was when Davis took over for Chris Fowler in 2015, and fondly remembers how much Corso’s love for college football was evident in everything he did.

“The one that leaps to mind, 2016, the classic game between Louisville and Clemson. Lamar Jackson, Deshaun Watson, and Clemson went onto win the national championship that year,” Davis recalled. “And LC, because of … that deep-rooted connection and love that he had for Louisville from when he was the head coach there, he was stalking that sideline. At times it was almost like he was out there with Bobby Petrino helping him call plays. It was just an absolutely joyful thing to see.

“Certainly his love for the sport runs deep. His impact on the game and television’s coverage of the game is similarly immeasurable. He’s part of the DNA of College GameDay. He is a wonderful friend, a trusted mentor, and I think it’s really easy to say the show won’t be the same without him. But if I could borrow a phrase: ‘Not so fast, my friend,’” Davis concluded, using Corso’s iconic retort whenever he would make a game pick that countered one of his colleagues. “The things that he’s taught us, the impact that he’s had, the lessons that he’s given will endure from now on for College GameDay.

“Every week he’s tell us ‘This show is against perfection.’ ‘Against perfection’ was the standard, and few have succeeded in their relationships, in their team building, in their television career, in their life as a family man – few have succeeded against perfection like the great Lee Corso. And all I can really say to him is: ‘Thanks, LC. You’re the best.’”