The roar of the crowd was reduced to a single voice echoing around Ohio Stadium as one of college football’s greatest ambassadors began to make his famous prediction live from the field on ESPN’s College GameDay.
It’s a scene that has repeated itself for decades on college campuses across the country, but this one is different. It’s Lee Corso’s last ever appearance on the show.
Dressed in a tuxedo, the silver-haired Corso masterfully built to his prediction of the most-anticipated home opener of the day: the No. 1 Texas Longhorns vs. the No. 3 Ohio State Buckeyes.
“This is one of the easiest picks I have ever made. Texas is loaded. Texas is number one. They have a Manning at quarterback. Poor Ohio State… they ain’t got a chance.”
Then Corso paused, smirked, and reached behind him on the television set.
“Give me my first love,” he said, pulling out the head of Brutus Buckeye as the stadium swelled with thunderous, cheering approval.
Corso did the same when he made his first-ever pick on College GameDay in 1996.
Watching all this from the Buckeyes’ sideline were the nine Ohio State student athletes who portray Brutus every day. The scene is surreal and a reminder that they represent one of the most famous mascots in college sports.
“That’s my head!” shouted Caleb Kies, one of the team’s seniors.
As the GameDay crew left the field and players got ready for kickoff, Brutus and Head Mascot Coach Ray Sharp caught Corso at the sidelines. Brutus handed him a gift. It didn’t take long for Corso to rip the red wrapping paper away, open the cardboard box and see the vintage Brutus head inside, much like the first one he picked almost 30 years earlier.
“This is for you,” Sharp said. “Forever.”
It was one of the carefully choreographed moments in the chaos of an Ohio State game day.
Saturdays are long. Away game travel is exhausting. Finding the balance between student and athlete can be a challenge.
But football season is Brutus’ time to shine.
The Dispatch joined the Brutus team on the sidelines as part of an effort to follow the Bruti for a year, getting exclusive access to what it takes to bring Ohio State’s iconic mascot to life.
Saturday, 4 a.m.
It would be two more hours before the bars along North High Street would be swimming in scarlet and gray. Tailgaters would soon be unpacking their cars in the shadow of Ohio Stadium, readying themselves for a morning of festivities. Across the street, fans were trickling into line for ESPN’s College GameDay.
But even the most die-hard fans didn’t beat Sharp to the ‘Shoe. He arrived around 4 a.m. for the Cotton Bowl rematch with Starbucks in hand, waiting for a sleek black Audi R8 to get dropped off at the stadium.
In the moments leading up to kickoff, Brutus will be chauffeured into Ohio Stadium on the sports car. It’s one of the countless game day elements that involve Ohio State’s mascot team.
But road closures and game day traffic meant the car would need to arrive early. Very early. So Sharp, too, was at the stadium earlier than usual.
Each week, Sharp and Assistant Mascot Coach Tim Thiel assemble a day-of-show schedule for Brutus. There are tailgates, performances, media hits, and game day traditions to appear at before kickoff. Then during the game, Brutus has plenty of his own traditions and obligations, like performing in timeout skits and visiting the stadium suite during halftime.
This week is especially busy given the historic home opener. Brutus had already appeared at a live taping of the Joel Klatt Show, an exclusive pre-show tailgate for VIP guests, a golf outing to raise money for spirit team scholarships and a bevy of back-to-school events.
Team members split up the day and take turns performing as Brutus for each football game. Coaches assign one Brutus for each half of the game. It would be impossible for one person to handle a full morning of events and a four-hour football game, Sharp said.
For one, it’s hard to maintain the level of energy and engagement needed to be Brutus for that long. Secondly, it gets hot in the suit. Like really, really hot.
The ambient temperature for Brutus is about 20 degrees warmer when someone is in the suit. Imagine you’re wearing a 10-pound helmet covered in fleece with poor ventilation. Standing on a rubber-based football field. In the middle of August. At noon. And you have to sprint from end zone to end zone in front of 100,000 fans.
Years ago, Ohio State kinesiology students put a wireless heart-rate monitor on Brutus to see how many calories he burned on gameday. Brutus burned two days’ worth of calories in eight hours, Sharp said. The research students thought their monitors were broken.
The biggest pre-game event would be Corso’s final show. It was fitting that the 90-year-old Corso wanted to end his broadcasting career at Ohio Stadium, the same place that he first donned Brutus’ head for his original headgear prediction long before any of the current Bruti were born.
Sharp had the schedule finalized by Wednesday night. Then ESPN called. The network decided to fly in a bunch of other college mascots for Corso’s last show.
“It is not our job to compete with the other mascots,” Sharp told the team earlier that week. “This day is about Corso. Our job is to represent Brutus.”
Saturday, 8 a.m.
The Brutus team arrived at French Field House ready for a long, hot day of work. The game day theme is “Scarlet the ‘Shoe,” so everyone is dressed in red from head to toe – Nike sneakers, shorts, t-shirts with the word “THE” plastered across the chest, and bucket hats.
For the next four hours, everything is pandemonium.
A sea of Buckeye and Longhorn fans had gathered in front of the GameDay stage hours earlier, waiting for their chance to see Corso. Fans waved signs that read “Not so fast, my friend!” and “Finish with your first love!”
Corso finally emerged on stage to thunderous applause.
Brutus bounced around the GameDay set, high-fiving and fist-bumping people as he went. He shimmied his way through wall-to-wall producers and backstage guests to make his way to the front of the crowd. Brutus jumped up on the barrier and threw his arms up in a staccato, spelling out “O-H-I-O.”
Brutus hung around the set for a couple of hours before joining the football team for its entrance into the ‘Shoe.
Meanwhile, a handful of other mascots also arrived at the College GameDay set. The Clemson Tiger and LSU’s Mike the Tiger got into a cat fight. Knightro from the University of Central Florida tried to break them up. Alabama’s Big Al and the Notre Dame Leprechaun danced in the corner, while Hook ‘Em posed for pictures with Texas alum Glen Powell.
It is, quite literally, mascot mayhem.
Saturday, 11:33 a.m.
It’s a fast-paced 27 minutes from Brutus’ first steps on the field to kickoff.
Brutus did quick calisthenics with the football team in the south end zone before running up the ramp to prepare for his own entrance on that Audi R8. He hopped off of the car and jumped onto a platform that shot smoke into the air, doing some of his signature moves.
After his entrance, Brutus skipped across the field to join TBDBITL for its entrance on the stadium’s north end. Some of the other team members started gathering along the Buckeyes’ sidelines to watch Corso’s last pick.
Kies pulled out a printed copy of the day’s timeline and glanced up at the clock.
“I’m low-key tweaking right now, I’m so worried I’m going to miss something,” he said. “We’ve had some busy games, but this is something else.”
Sharp walked over to tell Kurt Steelman, one of the seniors, to use his height to get pictures and videos of the day’s biggest pre-game moment. At 6-feet-6-inches tall, Steelman is affectionately known as “Tall Brutus.” Steelman towers above Corso, Brutus and Sharp, making sure to capture Corso unwrapping his headgear gift.
Saturday, 12:08 p.m.
Brutus ran out with the cheer team, waving a massive Block O flag to welcome the Buckeyes to the field. The rest of the spirit team rolled up the flags in the north end zone. Now Brutus needed a break.
Moody chugged water in the safety of Brutus’ locker. He’d only been in a suit for about an hour, but it was heating up fast between the late August sun and the black, long-sleeve shirt under his jersey.
Kies, meanwhile, ran across the sidelines and up the band ramp to get to the other side of the ‘Shoe to get ready for their first timeout skit.
Brutus’ life orbits around football. He reacts to the plays. He fills timeouts with performances. He cheers all day for his favorite team. But for the students inside the suit, they barely get to watch the game live.
“I’ve watched maybe 25 snaps of football in my time as Brutus,” Kies said.
He’ll hear the cheering, the oohs and ahhs of the crowd, but “we don’t know what’s going on,” he said.
One of a mascot’s countless jobs is to instigate hijinks, and game day skits are one way to do that. They all follow a similar pattern: They rib the away team’s mascot. The home team always prevails. And everyone has a good time.
Kies and one of the team’s rookies got dressed in a small office by the rotunda. Sharp popped inside the office for a quick pep talk.
“Be big. Don’t sweat it if you miss little stuff. Go out and have fun with it.”
Brutus reappeared in a matador outfit, running back into the stadium and chasing an inflatable bull that looked an awful lot like Hook ‘Em, Texas’ longhorn mascot.
Halftime
A rushing touchdown in the second quarter had Ohio Stadium buzzing going into halftime.
While the spirit, cheer and dance teams scarfed down their lunch, Brutus left to do suite visits with Sharp and Wisman as his handlers.
Brutus might be the big man on campus, but he’s never supposed to be left alone. Mascots always have a handler with them. It’s not because they’re irresponsible – though they can be mischievous. It’s mostly for their safety.
The group moved from the security of the sidelines and waded into the stadium’s general population. Fans instantly tried to get Brutus’ attention on the concourse.
“Brutus, high five!” “Hey, Brutus! Turn around!” “Over here! Over here!” “Take a picture with me, Brutus!” “Brutus, my man!”
Sharp and Wisman did their best to keep things moving. Halftime is only 20 minutes, and there are always a lot of folks to see.
First on their schedule was the President’s suite. Brutus darted around the large room, taking pictures and talking with the university’s VIP guests. Everyone, from trustees to politicians to donors, was excited to see Brutus.
From the President’s suite, Brutus moved on to the suites of a few university donors. A couple of people who noticed Brutus in the hall waited for him to leave a suite to catch him for a photo. Even Elizabeth Kessler, one of Ohio State’s trustees, and her friends tracked Brutus down for a picture.
“I have a thousand pictures with Brutus,” Kessler said, “and whenever I see him, I want a thousand and one.”
They were running tight on time, so Sharp, Wisman and Brutus ran from one end of the Huntington Club to the other to visit the final few suites.
One dad yelled, “Stop, Brutus! Do it for the kids!” and told his kids to chase Brutus down the hall for a picture.
Brutus isn’t ignoring you, Wisman said. He probably just can’t hear you.
It’s a double-edged sword, Sharp said. On the one hand, the team does such a good job portraying Brutus that people forget there’s a student under the head. And on the other hand, people tend to view Brutus as an object instead of a student.
At best, it leads to entitlement, with some people thinking Brutus should do whatever they want. But at worst, Sharp said, it can lead to complete disregard.
Sharp was reminded of that when he and Kies traveled to Seattle in September 2025 for the Buckeyes’ faceoff against Washington. The two were walking through a tunnel at the stadium when a man swung at Brutus and popped him in the head. Sharp went off on the guy.
“Hands off the mascot!” he shouted.
Later in the game, that same man who punched Brutus was honored on the field as the latest inductee in Washington’s athletics hall of fame.
Saturday, 2:25 p.m.
By the middle of the third quarter, Brutus was feeling gassed. The afternoon was blazing hot, but the rest of the team kept cheering him on from the south end zone.
The Buckeyes caught an interception late in the quarter, which perked things up. Brutus walked out into the end zone and started the Stadium Ohio cheer on his own, making the ‘Shoe erupt.
O! H! I! O!
“Did Brutus start that?” Sharp asked one of the teammates. “Let’s go!”
A 40-yard Buckeyes passing touchdown to start the fourth quarter helped keep spirits high.
Another turnover by Texas and the team went wild, including Sharp. He told the Bruti to go under the stadium’s south stands if fans tried to storm the field.
The game ends in a Buckeyes victory. Brutus and the whole spirit team head onto the field for Carmen Ohio, then to the end zone for their post-game ritual.
Circled up with arms around each other, Sharp praised everyone’s efforts as they swayed back and forth.
“Y’all killed it from beginning to end,” Sharp said. “You guys are the reason we won.”
As the team packed up for the day, Kies joked that he might have organ failure because of the heat.
“But think about our eleven warriors,” one of the rookies said, referring to the football team.
“What,” Kies replied, “you mean the nine Bruti and two coaches?”
Senior Day, 3:30 p.m.
Ohio State was riding high from its victory over Texas. The Buckeyes would go on to an undefeated regular season.
Three months later, the crisp November air on Senior Day was a far cry from the Buckeyes’ sweltering August home opener. Now, it was time to say goodbye.
The game was a blowout against Rutgers, but the score was an afterthought to the Brutus team seniors on their last home game in the ‘Shoe.
Their last team FanFest, last team walk into the stadium, last flag run, last post-game huddle on the field.
Every senior got a shoutout during the game. The four Brutus seniors were briefly honored during a timeout – listed as the “mascot support team” – with the dance and cheer teams. One of the younger Bruti watched from the sidelines.
“I’m sad! What do you mean we’re losing four people?” he said, giving each one a hug as they ran off the field.
After the game, the seniors sign their names on Brutus’ wooden locker, a longstanding tradition among Bruti. Steelman whistled “Carmen Ohio” as he walked away.
Moody lingered in the end zone for a while, watching TBDBITL’s post-game performance. He took a deep breath and sighed.
“It’s over,” Moody said.
But not really.
Ohio State’s regular season went out with a bang. But being undefeated doesn’t promise anything on the road to the national championship.
There’s only one thing that was certain for the Brutus team: Some of their hardest work was yet to come.
Higher education reporter Sheridan Hendrix can be reached at shendrix@dispatch.com and on Signal at @sheridan.120. You can follow her on Instagram at @sheridanwrites.
This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Go behind the scenes of a football game day with Ohio State’s Brutus Buckeye
Reporting by Sheridan Hendrix, Columbus Dispatch / The Columbus Dispatch
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
