Behind the numbers: Lee Corso's famous headgear picks on 'College GameDay'
Don’t lie to yourself. You’ve definitely done it at least once before.
You’d be busy doing whatever your Saturday morning consists of. But once it became quarter to noon, it was time to turn on ESPN to watch the “College GameDay” crew make their weekly game picks.
More specifically, though, you’re there to see which team’s mascot headgear Lee Corso will put on for the game of the week. It’s iconic. How could you want to miss that?
For more than 27 years, Corso, nicknamed the “Sunshine Scooter”, has made his famous headgear pick at the end of almost every “College GameDay” show. It famously started with Ohio State’s Brutus the Buckeye back in 1996 and will continue this weekend when Corso and the crew make the trip to Columbia for South Carolina’s huge matchup with No. 16 LSU.
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In his headgear career, Corso has a 277-139 overall record, correctly picking games more than 66 percent of the time.
It’s been 10 years since “GameDay” was last at South Carolina. And this will be the eighth time the Gamecocks are hosting the flagship college football event. In those games when they were the host, they went 3-4 overall.
As for Corso, he’s also 4-3 in making his headgear picks, choosing South Carolina three times. He’s 1-2 in the games he went with the Gamecocks. 20 years ago, he rolled with them to beat Georgia and ended up being wrong. In 2012, he correctly picked South Carolina over Georgia. And, boy, was he right. The Gamecocks earned a blowout 35-7 win over the Dawgs. Most recently, when “GameDay” was last in Columbia, Corso picked South Carolina over Missouri, which ended up being incorrect, as the Tigers made a big fourth-quarter comeback and won 21-20.
There’s no telling who Corso may end up picking on Saturday. Could he be swayed by the Gamecock fans and the home environment in his decision? Of course. But then you have to remember who the other team featured on “GameDay” will be.
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Since the headgear picks began, LSU has been on “GameDay” 33 times. Over the years, the Mike the Tiger headgear has continuously popped up whenever the Tigers were on the show. And that’d be right. Corso is 17-6 in games where he’s put on the tiger head. Overall, though, he’s a respectable 24-9 in any headgear pick, whether he picked the Tigers or not.
In 2023, Corso made 16 headgear picks, going 9-7 overall. However, he ended the year on a four-game losing skid. So far in 2024, though, he’s off to a 4-0 start, with his latest correct pick being Texas over Michigan in Ann Arbor last weekend.
At 89 years old, there’s no telling how much longer Corso plans on doing this for. At least for right now, it doesn’t seem like he’ll be slowing down with the hot streak he’s been on this year. Either way, you can bet plenty of fans will be turning on their TVs right before noon to see which headgear he ends up putting on.
“College GameDay” will be live from Gamecock Park on Saturday, starting at 9 a.m. on ESPN. The show will then move inside Williams-Brice Stadium at 11 a.m. for the final hour. In front of the Gamecock crowd, Corso will either don Cocky or Mike the Tiger’s headgear, then South Carolina and LSU will kickoff at 12:12 p.m. on ABC.
