HEAD GAMES
Corso hits a milestone on ESPN
I T could be called the “Most Entertaining Minute on Television” — and, for college football fans, it’s definitely appointment TV.
At 11:59 a.m. Saturday, approximately 1.8 million viewers will tune in to watch the final minute of ESPN’s “College GameDay” to see if the show’s analyst, Coach Lee Corso, will pick the West Virginia Mountaineers or the TCU Horned Frogs to win their matchup.
The phenomenon, known as “Headgear” — celebrating its 300th edition Saturday — was born on Oct. 5, 1996, when, during the pick segment at the end of the show (which airs from 9 a.m. to noon) Corso donned Ohio State’s mascot head, Brutus the Buckeye, to illustrate he was picking Ohio State to win its game.
“We thought it would be a onetime thing. But the reaction was so overwhelming,” says analyst Kirk Herbstreit, whose wife, Allison — a former Ohio State cheerleader — procured the inaugural head. Even if Herbstreit thought it might have been one and done for headgear, Corso knew he was on to something. “As soon as I did it, I had an idea [it was going to be big] because the crowd went wild, the truck went wild and the people at ESPN loved it,” he says. “And I thought, ‘I think I’ve got a shtick here, I’ll stay with it.’ I never dreamed it would be 300.” While “Headgear” is now shared across many platforms of social media, that obviously wasn’t possible when it premiered 21 years ago. “If it had been around then, it would have gone instantly viral,” says Chris Fowler, who hosted “College“C GameDay”Game from 1990 to 2014.20 So what makes a grown man wearing an oversized mascot head so appealing? “The man inside the mascot head is the essential part of it. That’s because he’s so authentic,” says Fowler. “You put a head on somebody else and it’s not funny. You put it on [Corso] and it becomes funny.”
Corso’s record currently stands at 196 wins and 103 losses.
According to Lee Fitting, ESPN’s VP of production, college sports — who previously produced “College GameDay” — Corso reminds his colleagues often that it’s not the Xs and Os that people are tuning in for: it’s the entertainment factor.
“Coach always says, ‘Remember sweetheart, we’re in the entertainment business and college football is our vehicle,’” Fitting says. “‘We’re not in the college football business.’ We joke around that the other two hours and 59 minutes of the show are meaningless.”
Since Fitting has been associated with “College GameDay,” the show has won seven Sports Emmy Awards (four consecutively) for Outstanding Weekly Studio Show.
“It’s so rare in TV and in sports TV that you get TV gold and Coach’s headgear is TV gold at its best,” says Fitting. “It’s such a natural fun moment. Most shows would die to have something like that to end their show. Coach and his headgear are ‘College GameDay.’ Period.”