Southwest Airlines honors Lee Corso before flight to final College GameDay show

As ESPN’s College GameDay returns for its debut appearance for the 2025 season, Lee Corso will be participating in his final show. It’ll be a special send-off for a college football legend.

He’s expected to don the headgear for either Ohio State or Texas, marking one final farewell after more than 400 games doing so. However, before all of that takes place, he received an awesome honor from Southwest Airlines.

A gate attendant ahead of Corso’s flight made sure to give him a special, heartfelt shoutout before he boarded. Check out the video below, as reposted on On3’s Instagram account.

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As you can tell, that’s awesome for Corso, and for everyone boarding his flight ahead of his final College GameDay. He deserves all the love he’s been getting, and this is only the beginning of what should be an emotional weekend.

Expect tribute videos, kind words and a lack of dry eyes for Corso’s final show. It all gets underway tomorrow morning, ahead of an incredible Week 1 slate.

More on Lee Corso, Texas at Ohio State

With Corso’s farewell taking place in Columbus, Buckeyes coach Ryan Day waxed poetic about the beloved analyst. It’s evident he has all the respect in the world for him, and it’s an honor to Ohio State to host his farewell.

“Man, I think great ambassador to the game, just somebody who’s been positive and builds people up,”Day said, reflecting on Corso’s final show. “He’s somebody that I remember just so many years of putting on the mascot heads and just making Saturdays so enjoyable for so many people.”

Corso has already had some truly heartwarming moments in his long swan song. He donned his 400th headgear during the 2023 season, which ESPN went all out for. But what he means to the game is hard to summarize. In many ways, Lee Corso is college football.

“Not only as a coach but as a broadcaster and what he’s done, he’s had a lot of impact on people,” Day said. “I just feel like, when it’s all said and done, and now that his career, obviously coaching, but now as a broadcaster, is ending, you look back on the impact that you made. And he certainly made a major impact on a lot of people.”

— On3’s Thomas Goldkamp contributed to this article.