For Kirk Herbstreit, the most meaningful part of a recent trip to Orlando had nothing to do with television, appearances or the College GameDay season. It was seeing Lee Corso again.
Herbstreit said he was in Orlando maybe two or three weeks before Us Weekly published his comments on September 8, 2026, and Corso reached out because the location was familiar ground. Corso used to handle that same appearance for 25 years, and the reunion quickly turned into something more personal than a quick catch-up.
“By the time I landed, there he is. We hugged, embraced. He was emotional because we haven’t seen each other in a while,” Herbstreit said. “When he cried, it made me cry. Because he’s my guy. We were able to hang out for probably 20 or 30 minutes and just kind of get caught up.”
The emotional part of that story matters, but so does the part Herbstreit added about Corso’s condition. Corso retired from ’s College GameDay in August 2025 after appearing on all 38 seasons of the show, and Herbstreit made clear that while physical issues have slowed him, his mind is still very much intact. “We’d all be lucky to have such cognitive thinking at 91,” Herbstreit said. “His eyes are sharp. He’s dialed in. He’s just going through some stuff that makes it tough on him.”
Corso is still Corso
That last line is what gives the reunion its real weight. Herbstreit was not describing a fading memory or a man detached from the sport that made him a fixture. He said Corso still knows teams, still knows players and still has opinions. In other words, the football mind is still there even if the body is not cooperating the way it once did.
That is why the moment felt bigger than nostalgia. College GameDay has changed, and this season it is partnered with CELSIUS, but the thread connecting the show’s present to its past is still strong. Herbstreit, who joined College GameDay in 1996, has spent decades next to Corso in a setting that became part analysis, part performance and part weekly ritual. Seeing Corso in Orlando reminded him that some of that connection survives long after the broadcast spotlight moves on.
Herbstreit also said he told Corso that everybody loves him and misses him, and that Corso feels that love. That line fits the larger picture here: this was not just a former colleague checking in. It was an old football relationship being measured not by what Corso can still do on camera, but by how much he still means to the people around him.
And for Herbstreit, the answer was obvious. Corso may no longer be on College GameDay every Saturday at 9 a.m. ET, but the respect, affection and memory around him remain fully intact.
