Kirk Herbstreit is heading into his 30th year as a member of ESPN’s College GameDay, the network’s flagship college football show and one of the most popular products in the Worldwide Leader’s portfolio.
Throughout the vast majority of his run on GameDay, the heartbeat of the show was the relationship between himself and Lee Corso, who ended his own historic run on the program in Week 1 of the 2025 college football season.
As it turns out, that might not have been the case had Herbstreit taken some advice he was given in his very first year on the desk. In a recent interview with Bryan Curtis on The Press Box podcast, Herbstreit recalled memories of his start at ESPN and relayed a story of some early notes he got as a member of GameDay.
Herbstreit said he was the son of a coach, and thus, always had an intrinsic respect for Corso. That deference had some on the GameDay set wishing for more conflict on the show.
“I remember about the middle of the year, a guy came up to me at ESPN who worked on GameDay [and said], ‘You’ll never last if you don’t figure out how to aggressively go after Corso,’ because that’s what Craig had done,” Herbstreit said. “I just didn’t think that I could do that.”
“I was calling him Coach and Craig was calling him Lee,” Herbstreit continued. “If I would disagree with him, I would disagree with him in a very respectful manner. Craig would be like, ‘You’re crazy, old man!’ in a fun kind of way. I could never do that. I remember them telling me, ‘You’ll never work if you don’t start getting aggressive with Corso.’ I was like, ‘Well, then it’s not going to work, because I’m not going to go that route.’”
Herbstreit’s decision to trust his natural relationship with Corso proved to be the correct one in the long run. Their banter, and in Corso’s final years on the show, the genuine love and care they had for each other were one of the most compelling reasons to tune in every Saturday.
With Corso now retired from GameDay, the show is in a new era, but Herbstreit remains a staple of college football Saturday mornings after 30 years.
At 57, and with Corso holding his seat on the program until he was 90, Herbstreit could very well be there for 30 more.
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