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Yes, Lee Corso coached at Indiana. And he was pretty dang good, too.

You’ll hear about this quite a bit on College Gameday tonight. Here’s a little more about his ten seasons at Indiana, if you’re new to this.

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Maryland. The Naval Academy. Louisville. Indiana.

This was the coaching path that Lee Corso took before eventually ending up as Indiana University’s head coach from 1973-1982 making it his longest coaching tenure in his career.

Now 35 years later, Corso is back in Bloomington.

On Thursday, Lee Corso and ESPN will host a special edition of College Gameday from inside Memorial Stadium where IU is set to take on #2 Ohio State in front of Indiana’s first sellout crowd since 2010.

Since the show started going to campuses in 1993, Indiana was just one of twelve power five schools left that had never hosted and College Gameday, which would likely mean that this might be Corso’s first time seeing IU football live since his coaching days. This doesn’t come as much surprise considering Indiana’s football history. Even Corso, who coached a whole nine seasons, only went 41-68-2.

But today is not about Indiana’s past, today is about the potential that Indiana’s future holds.

To remind everyone how far IU has come over the decades listen to this. During a 1976 game against Ohio State then Head Coach Lee Corso took a timeout shortly after converting PAT in the second quarter. After calling timeout he gathered the team to pose for a picture with the score board that read “Indiana 7, Ohio State 6”.

The reason why Corso did this?

It was the first time that Indiana had lead the Buckeyes in a football game in 25 years.

Now, thankfully, the Hoosiers seem to have much more of a fighting chance against Ohio State this evening.

So while Tom Allen and IU look to a bright future for the program, guys like Corso, Bill Mallory, Terry Hoeppner, and even Kevin Wilson to an extent should be recognized for the forging the path for this team.

Heck, this might be Corso’s only chance to do Gameday in Bloomington as he’s already 82-years-old (!!) and sadly approaching the end of his incredible broadcast career.

Either way, this game will be one for the ages not only for the over 50,000 attending, but for Lee Corso as well.