One of the true legends of sports broadcasting, Lee Corso is retiring after Week 1 of this fall’s season and in the process, Nebraska football fans are losing a true ally who deeply loved the tenets and tradition of the Cornhuskers.
On Thursday morning, ESPN announced that Corso is donning his final piece of headgear on August 30 and will then call it a very prestigious career. The broadcaster, who will turn 90 just ahead of his final game, has worked for an incredible 38 seasons covering the sport he loves after a less-than-impressive coaching career,, thanks in large part to being shackled to programs like Indiana.
Over the course of his career, Corso has often spoken about the respect he has for the Nebraska football program. Some of that is based on his love for Tom Osborne, but he’s also loved the way that Husker fans have long stood out as a group that shows real respect to the teams that come to Memorial Stadium, win or lose.
Why Lee Corso always had a special bond with Nebraska football
Love ya Coach-you’ll be missed more than ya know. Been our honor to be with ya all these years. https://t.co/tQHMn5wjyV pic.twitter.com/XdH0btZx9K
— Kirk Herbstreit (@KirkHerbstreit) April 17, 2025
“One of the highlights of my career,” Corso told the Omaha World Herald back in 2019. “I’ll never forget, the crowd gives us a standing ovation after the game. Nebraska fans, to me, have always been the best fans in America.”
Lee Corso’s most well-known gimmick for decades has been donning the headgear of the biggest pick of the day on ESPN’s College GameDay. The unofficial count has him putting on a corn hat five times over the years, with the first being when NU took on the Washington Huskies in 1998.
The Huskers won that game, against the Top 10 Pac-10 team, 55-7. He finished 3-2 in his career when he wore the Nebraska headgear. Overall in games he used any headgear in Husker games, he was an impressive 9-3 and in all picks, Cole’s Gameday blog, says the analyst went 287-144, meaning he boasted a 67% accuracy rate.
Unfortunately, it appears that Nebraska football fans will miss out on the chance for Lee Corso to pick the Cornhuskers one more time before he retires. His final ESPN College GameDay will be on August 30 and the Huskers will take on Cincinnati two days earlier, on Thursday, August 28 to open their season.