Rece Davis, the show’s host, said at the start of the broadcast that Lee Corso was unable to participate in Saturday’s College GameDay due to an unexplained illness.
Due to “doctor’s instructions,” commentator Kirk Herbstreit noted, Corso chose not to travel to Lawrence, the Kansas University of Kansas for the Saturday broadcast. The same ailment, according to Davis, caused Corso to skip Clemson’s broadcast last week as well.
Davis stated, “Lee Corso is not with us this week.” Corso wasn’t feeling well the week before at Clemson, as those of you who join us every week are aware.
The last time I spoke to him, he was feeling much better. We hope to have “LC” back in the chair with us very soon, but she still has another week to recover.
Saturday’s show kicked off at the main desk with analysts Davis, Herbstreit, Desmond Howard, Pat McAfee, and David Pollack. After the introduction, Pollack usually “rotates in” to offer Corso breaks throughout the three-hour programme.
Herbstreit, who has collaborated with Corso on “GameDay” for more than 25 years, described how it is “extremely weird” for everyone watching and for those of us on the set, of course, to not have Lee around.
But you (Davis) talked to him, I got a chance to talk to him, and I’m sure Desmond did too; he does sound better. He wasn’t supposed to be able to travel this week, though, I believe per a doctor’s orders.
The good news is that LC will be back here with us where he belongs next week, wherever GameDay may be, thanks to the testing he’s been undergoing.
Lee Corso woke up feeling under the weather, but is feeling much better now.
Thinking of you, Coach ❤️ pic.twitter.com/kc2mOxAVJU
— College GameDay (@CollegeGameDay) October 1, 2022
The 87-year-old Corso has been a regular on College GameDay since the show’s inception in the early 1990s, and thanks to his antics on the set and show-ending “headgear” picks, he has become a legend in the college football community.
Despite occasionally having speech issues after having a stroke in 2009, he has kept working. Due to COVID constraints, Corso was unable to travel with GameDay in 2020. Instead, he appeared remotely from a set that had been built at his Florida home.
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In addition, he made a remote appearance for the first episode of GameDay in 2022, which was broadcast from the Bristol, Connecticut, ESPN headquarters. However, he has since travelled with the programme every week.
Corso visited Clemson last week, but he was absent from the broadcast. At the time, ESPN reported that he was “under the weather.”