The grandfather of the game is walking away, which is sort of apropos in these vapid and vacuous times.
It’s not your grandfather’s college football anymore, and now the old guy will make it official by exiting the building.
Lee Corso, the unintended glorious gift to America’s obsession with televised football, will retire from ESPN’s ‘College GameDay’ after the first week of the 2025 season.
Maybe we can get him to turn off the lights on the way out, too.
Am I the only one who sees this surreal irony? While social media is flush with memories of Corso from days gone by, let’s not undersell the obvious final connection of out with the old and in with the new.
Maybe it’s just a coincidence that the sport’s ambassador will be leaving after the first week of a season where players are likely paid to play, earning a shared percentage of media-rights revenue.
Back when Corso made Thursday Night football electric – literally, electric – and long after the NFL commandeered the night, the idea of pay for play was the NCAA’s mortal sin. Players receive plenty with a scholarship and room and board, thank you.
And if they’re lucky, they’ll get a few, wink-wink, hundred-dollar handshakes along the way.
There was a time two decades ago – I’m not making this up – when Steve Spurrier offered the idea of coaches pooling together some extra cash to give players money. You know, walking-around cash.
He was so adamant about it, he threatened to release the names of the coaches in the SEC who refused to pay their part.
Now, we had a marginally successful quarterback holding up a storied program days before the opening of something called the “transfer portal.” Now, it’s a player’s right to play when and where he wants, and for how much money he can get on the open market.
And anyone who tries to stop them will get a friendly subpoena from somewhere in the United States judicial system, where every attorney is welcome to argue any case they wish.
It wasn’t that long ago when you signed with a program and played with that program — and if you didn’t, and left for another school, you were the outlier who couldn’t cut it. And you better believe if you couldn’t make it there, what in the world made you think you could make it here? The whole, “Those who stay will be champions,” thing.
You know, developing productive, valuable adults.
But when the NCAA opened the doors on free agency in 2021, The Team, The Team, The Team became the teams, the contracts, the leverage. This beautiful symphony of a sport has become the land of independent contractors — even in the best of times.
Ohio State doesn’t win the national title last season without four critical free-agent signings: Will Howard, Quinshon Judkins, Seth McLaughlin and Caleb Downs.
One played lights-out in the postseason, one led the team in rushing and scored three touchdowns in the national title game, one was an All-America lineman and the other the most complete defensive player in the nation.
Other than that, how did Ohio State lose to Michigan? Again.
Player empowerment has drastically changed the landscape of the game, leaving university presidents and administrators and coaches scrambling to respond to an extinction event of their own making. Not of the game itself, but of the game they knew and loved.
Of the game that grew from a regional sport to a national behemoth with the rocket engine of cable giant ESPN, and frankly, the gregarious yet gracious personality of Corso.
The laughter and the tears. The unintended mishaps and the unforgettable slips.
And now, with the sport hurtling through an uncontrollable metamorphosis, Corso is leaving and a carnival barker is taking center stage. How fitting.
From your lovable grandfather, to crazy cousin Pat McAfee trying to give away hundreds of thousands of his dollars every single week. Because he can.
Hey, why shouldn’t everyone get in on the money grab? If the Power Four conference schools are making more than $7 billion annually through media-rights deals and revenue generation, and players will likely be paid from a salary pool of at least $20 million-$23 million, why not throw some cash at the fans?
The loyal, unwavering fans who for decades bought tickets and apparel, and spent uncontrollably on cable television, and then on streaming and premium apps — because those precious four months of the season come and go so quickly, they just can’t get enough.
Fall Saturdays were (and to some, still are) a religious rite of passage. So yeah, excuse them if they feel a little melancholy about their grandfather saying goodbye.
They’ve watched the game they love grow into a mini version of the NFL, full of contracts and salary caps and now holdouts. The only difference is there isn’t some dork at the top of the food chain making $40 million annually to act as the purveyor of all things — when he’s really just a mouthpiece for 32 billionaires.
I’d give a billion to have Corso forever.
Instead, it won’t cost a penny to have him flip off the lights when he leaves.
Matt Hayes is the senior national college football writer for USA TODAY Sports Network. Follow him on X at @MattHayesCFB.