Overloaded transfer portals. The name, image, likeness trifecta. Holdouts, opt-outs and cop-outs. The House vs. NCAA settlement.

Every which way you turn, it seems it’s doom and gloom for college football, more lawsuits piled on top of legal briefs piled on top of salary caps and roster limits.

This, clearly, is no way for a sports fan to live his life.

The football offseason is tough enough as it is.

Sometime this spring we’ll learn, or so goes the promise, what the House (of Politicians) and the NCAA (stuffed shirts) have come up with to fix everything hunky-dory again.

Sheesh, what could go wrong with that combination?

Hold on to your pompoms.

But just when you thought things couldn’t get any worse for college football…

Just when it was looking like rock bottom for a proud sport…

Just when you thought they must be out of bad news for the fun part of the sport…

Yes. Now comes word that Lee Corso is retiring.

Say it ain’t so.

No more of his much-anticipated headgear picks on ESPN’s popular “College GameDay” show every fall Saturday morning. If nothing else, once Lee clumsily wrestled some sort of headgear atop his head, you knew that football Saturday was moments away from kicking off and you could put all the legal shenanigans behind you for the rest of the day.

No more.

Well, one more actually.

Corso apparently will do a one-game farewell tour for “GameDay’s” season-opening show on Aug. 31.

Just a guess, but every campus with a home game that day will probably be in a bidding war for the honor.

ESPN hasn’t yet said where it will be

Not only did Corso first unveil the headgear shtick at Ohio State in 1996, the Buckeyes have Texas in for this year’s opener.

That would be your oddson favorite for the Corso sayonara.

Then ESPN should retire it. Put the last headgear in the Smithsonian Institution for posterity and be done with it.

It is, after all, an American phenomenon, up to the part where local fans spontaneously (and, perhaps, sarcastically) cheer when he picks against them, figuring the home team is safe for the day.

It was great theater while it lasted all these years.

But, what is it they say?

You wouldn’t want to be the Headgear Picker who tried to replace the Headgear Picker.

Panel newcomer Nick Saban, a GOAT of another flavor, is excellent on “GameDay” — of course he is, no surprise there. But I can’t imagine him doing anything as silly as the headgear pick and pulling it off.

Nor would he want to.

For that matter, Corso, to my way of thinking, got unfairly typecast by the headgear thing.

There was a lot more to him and the show than the grand finale.

And, for my money, his best work came on those “GameDay” promo commercials that might pop up anytime during the week.

He was a natural comedic actor there, often with more subtle humor than with the madcap headgear stuff.

A personal favorite was when they lured Les Miles in for a promo and Corso picked the then LSU coach’s brain on his favorite flavors of turf grass to munch on, all the while with the rest of the crew trying to figure out what in tarnation was going on.

That was the thing about Corso, though.

Forget the picks.

And don’t expect technical explanations of Cover-2 defense.

Corso would far rather talk about what kind of turf Miles preferred when he needed a sideline snack.

He seemed to have this naturally playful notion that football ought to be fun, often even silly.

It made “GameDay” unpredictable.

He was probably a big reason for the real appeal of the show, which was the chemistry between the panel, particularly with Corso and Kirk Herbstreit.

You got your football fix on Saturday morning, but it was also pretty heartwarming how protective Herbie became of Corso, particularly in recent years as his health slowed him down.

“GameDay” will carry on. It should survive without Corso.

But — not so fast — it won’t ever be quite the same again.
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Scooter Hobbs covers LSU athletics. Email him at scooter.hobbs@americanpress.com