Lee Corso on GameDay Credit: Credit: Joseph Maiorana-Imagn Images, Adam Cairns/Columbus Dispatch
By Sam Neumann on

This week, we’re celebrating the highs, the lows, the best, and the worst of the year with The Awfulies. As we’ve done for the past four years, the Awful Announcing staff has cast its votes for who we think should take home the coveted golden microphone in a wide variety of categories across the sports media industry.

There were plenty of memorable sports media moments in 2025.

Jordan Schultz and Ian Rapoport got into a heated confrontation at a Starbucks during the NFL Combine, prompting NFL Security to take statements from witnesses. Pablo Torre’s reporting on UNC and the Jordan Hudson situation. Travis Kelce and Taylor Swift’s engagement dominated coverage for weeks. The Disney-YouTube TV settlement ended a blackout that had sports fans panicking.

But when it came time to pick the Best Sports Media Moment of 2025 for The Awfulies, Lee Corso’s final College GameDay on Aug. 30 was the obvious choice. His sendoff reminded everyone what sports television can be when everyone involved understands what actually matters.

ESPN set the stage weeks in advance, announcing in April that Corso would retire after one final show in Week 1 of the college football season. The decision to hold it in Columbus made perfect sense. That’s where Corso made his first mascot headgear pick back in 1996, donning Brutus Buckeye to pick Ohio State over Penn State.

Nearly three decades later, he’d come full circle.

The buildup to that Saturday morning felt different than typical College GameDay hype. ESPN aired a tribute special the night before. Chris Fowler, who hosted GameDay alongside Corso for more than two decades before moving to the Saturday night broadcast booth in 2014, flew in to be part of the show despite having to call LSU-Clemson that night and then fly back to New York for the US Open. Kirk Herbstreit spent the week talking openly about what Corso meant to him and the show.

What followed on Saturday morning was three hours of Corso doing what he’d always done. He picked LSU to beat Clemson, which seemed bold given the Tigers were five-and-a-half-point underdogs. He chose Florida State over Alabama, an even bigger upset with the Seminoles getting 13.5 points.

Then came the final segment. Davis introduced it by acknowledging that the headgear pick tradition would end with Corso, which felt like the right call. Some traditions belong to the people who create them, and trying to carry on without Corso would’ve felt hollow. The camera showed Brutus Buckeye bringing out the mascot head, the same one Corso wore in 1996 for his first pick. The crowd at Ohio Stadium went crazy. Corso put on the head one last time, waved goodbye, and that was it.

College GameDay averaged 3.5 million viewers that morning, making it the most-watched episode in the show’s history. The final quarter-hour, when Corso made his pick, peaked at 5.1 million viewers. Those numbers don’t include the people watching on Fox’s Big Noon Kickoff, which ESPN allowed to simulcast the moment in a rare show of respect between competing networks. Ohio State even put Corso’s final pick on the video boards inside the stadium so fans at the game could watch.

Before that Saturday, College GameDay had never averaged more than 3 million viewers for an entire episode. The previous record was 2.6 million back in 2007 for Kansas-Missouri — Corso’s sendoff nearly doubled it.

And he went out perfect. All six of his picks that weekend won. LSU beat Clemson. Florida State upset Alabama. Ohio State beat Texas. Tennessee, South Carolina, and Miami all won on Sunday, completing the sweep. It was the kind of Hollywood ending that doesn’t actually happen in real life, except this time it did.

After the show, Ohio State presented Corso with the original Brutus Buckeye head from 1996. He’d made that pick 46 times over the years, more than any other mascot. The Buckeyes went 32-14 in those games. Now Corso had the headgear to take home, a tangible piece of the tradition he created.

What made Corso’s farewell work was that everyone involved understood the assignment. ESPN gave him a proper sendoff without making it maudlin. The crew on the show treated it like the significant moment it was without overplaying their hands. Fox respected the situation enough to air Corso’s final pick despite being direct competitors. Ohio State made sure fans inside the stadium could participate. Even the games themselves cooperated, with all of Corso’s former teams winning.

College GameDay will continue. ESPN has already moved on, with Nick Saban and Pat McAfee now part of the regular cast. The show’s ratings were strong throughout 2025, averaging 2.7 million viewers per episode, which was the best season on record.

They’ll be fine without Corso, and that’s probably how he’d want it.

But there won’t be another Lee Corso. No other broadcaster has spent 38 years on the same show, creating a tradition that has become synonymous with the sport itself. No one else can make putting on a foam mascot head must-see television every single week.

Corso told reporters a few months later that being away from GameDay has been “lousy” and that he “hates it.” He said, “It sucks” to not be traveling with the show anymore. That’s Corso in a nutshell. He’s 90 years old and still wishes he were on the road every Saturday doing the job he spent nearly four decades perfecting.

Corso wasn’t necessarily ready to ride off into the sunset, but at 90, the decision had to be made eventually. ESPN deserves credit for allowing him to choose when and how to leave, rather than forcing him out. They gave him the platform to go out on top, with record ratings and a perfect picking day, instead of limping to the finish line.

The Best Sports Media Moment of 2025 was Lee Corso in a tuxedo, putting on a mascot head one last time while 5.1 million people watched him say goodbye to a job he loved for 38 years.

That’s as good as it gets.

About Sam Neumann

Since the beginning of 2023, Sam has been a staff writer for Awful Announcing and The Comeback. A 2021 graduate of Temple University, Sam is a Charlotte native, who currently calls Greenville, South Carolina his home. He also has a love/hate relationship with the New York Mets and Jets.

View all posts by Sam Neumann