Someone slid into Cole Reagan’s DMs the morning of Saturday, Oct. 10, 2020, just as ESPN’s “College GameDay” was kicking off in an empty Death Valley in Clemson, S.C. It was the middle of the COVID-19-riddled college football season when nothing was close to normal anywhere. For college football fanatics, though, they still had GameDay, even if extremely modified.
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A producer from the show asked for Reagan’s help — because when there is a certain statistic needing double-checking or verifying, it’s known you go to Cole, a 37-year-old IT systems administrator from the Dallas area. With No. 1 Clemson hosting No. 7 Miami later that day, Alex Rodriguez was serving as the celebrity guest picker on the pregame show. Rodriguez, it turns out, rated as the top guest picker in GameDay history, going a perfect 12-0 in his previous appearance on Nov. 11, 2017.
The producer’s DM told Reagan they needed to give him a call.
“I thought I was in trouble,” Reagan recalled. “I always thought I was going to get an email from ESPN telling me to cease and desist.”
Turns out, the show wanted to lean on the expansive list of GameDay pickers kept by Reagan since 2009 to help identify some of the other top performers in the show’s history. Reagan, with the help of his wife, Jennifer, quickly compiled the information and sent it off. Soon enough, the goods appeared in a graphic on live TV for all college football fans to see. (Other perfect guest pickers include professional golfer Bubba Watson, who went 10-0 in 2013, and “Duck Dynasty” star Jase Robertson, who went 9-0 in 2014, per Reagan.)
That season left fans everywhere yearning for an eventual return to the sort of raucous on-site atmosphere that became synonymous with the show.
At home in Lake Mary, Fla., Lee Corso provided a glimpse of what followers craved. Then 85, Corso put on the Clemson Tiger headgear and consoled Miami mascot Sebastian the Ibis, who was dejected. Corso was right: Clemson beat Miami that night, 42-17. When that game went final, Reagan added the result to his ever-growing list tracking college football picks and predictions he’s maintained 13 years running. The site is aptly called Cole’s GameDay Blog, and it’s filled with data of various picks from college football analysts, “SportsCenter” hosts, sports radio hosts and more.
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Corso has two tabs of the site devoted to him. One page is dedicated to his headgear photo gallery, going back to October 1996, as well as Reagan’s running tracking of Corso’s headgear record.
“I don’t know what else to call it other than an obsession,” Reagan said.
What started out as jotting down betting lines on a yellow legal pad, taking note of various predictions from analysts, morphed into the idea of just tracking Corso’s headgear picks. Former Atlanta Braves star Chipper Jones was the celebrity picker on Sept. 4, 2009, when Virginia Tech played Alabama. Reagan wondered to himself: Is Corso a better picker of games than a Hall of Fame third baseman?
“A lot of people start their Saturdays off by watching GameDay,” Reagan said, “whether you’re making last-minute bets or making breakfast.”
And the immense popularity of the show has largely been driven by the enigmatic Corso, now 87, whose headgear picks have become an established part of college football lore. The legend began in 1996 when Corso asked longtime colleague Kirk Herbstreit if he could find a way to get the mascot head of Ohio State’s Brutus the Buckeye. With the help of Herbstreit’s future wife, Allison, Corso put Brutus’ big head on the set on live TV as his official pick announcement. It became, as he later recalled on ESPN, his “shtick.”
It’s probably the most common question when discussing the show: Which mascot gear did Corso put on? He recently chose Kansas State to upset previously unbeaten TCU in the Big 12 title game, which stunned some college football followers. But he nailed it.
It's been 24 years since Lee Corso put on his very first headgear.
He tells the story of how he came up with the legendary idea. pic.twitter.com/pBkbytjlyj
— College GameDay (@CollegeGameDay) October 10, 2020
As Reagan sees it, many GameDay fans now see the former coach as the jovial grandfather who can morph into a court jester at a moment’s notice and make viewers bust out laughing. But Corso’s opinion has also had important sway in shaping opinion during the BCS era and beyond, he said.
Two years ago, Reagan teamed up with students in the SMU statistics department who were looking to work with a long history of data to start on a long-term project. And as Reagan said, data is something he has a ton of. The students put together a model to project which teams Corso would choose on any given week. They even built an app (which no longer works, unfortunately). They came to the conclusion that — surprise, surprise — the Vegas point spread provided the biggest indicator: “Corso most closely correlates with picking the favorite.”
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There are some minor discrepancies between Reagan’s Corso record and the “official” record kept by ESPN. Some of that could be due to ESPN not tracking bowl game predictions, while Reagan has. He has 395 GameDay predictions, while the official number is likely closer to 390. According to Reagan, Corso is 264-131 all-time in headgear predictions, getting it right 66.84 percent of the time, and the 400-pick milestone is looming. GameDay has made a show of Corso’s 200th, 250th, 300th and 350th picks.
Corso has missed some time on the show this year due to health issues, which has once again brought the eventuality of him retiring closer to the forefront. ESPN has added to the show personality Pat McAfee. Reagan said he thinks Corso will have a major hand in choosing his successor, adding his betting favorites are McAfee or fellow panelist Desmond Howard.
“It’ll definitely be sad when he retires,” Reagan said of Corso, “but it’s not going to end things for me.”
No, Reagan will still have his hands full with other picks to track for what his wife appropriately calls his second full-time job.
“She reminded me,” he said, “that I live-blogged the ‘College GameDay’ picks from the Orlando airport while waiting to pick up our luggage on the way to Disney World two weeks ago.”
(Top photos: Michael Shrover, Rod Mar, Patrick Green and Mark Alberti / Getty Images; Wesley Hitt /Icon Sportswire; Illustration: John Bradford / The Athletic)
