Lee Corso’s Return to Indiana For College GameDay Coincides With Holiday Bowl Reunion

Players from Indiana’s 1979 Holiday Bowl team didn’t think Lee Corso, their coach, would be in town for their 45-year reunion. But ESPN College GameDay is in Bloomington for Saturday’s Indiana-Washington game, a coincidence that was “meant to be.”

Indiana football coach Lee Corso (left), co-captain Terry Tallen (62) and tight end Bob Stephenson celebrate the Hoosiers' win over BYU in the 1979 Holiday Bowl. / Indiana University Archives

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. – The stars have aligned across decades of Indiana football history this weekend.

Over 70 members of the 1979 team plan to be in town for the 45-year reunion of the Holiday Bowl, the program’s first bowl victory. The team has held several reunions over the years, but one key figure has missed the last three – head coach Lee Corso.

That was shaping up to be the case again in 2024. Corso’s weekends are booked as he travels around the country with the ESPN College GameDay pregame show, and he’s famous for donning the mascot head of his pick for each week’s marquee matchup. 

GameDay has come to Bloomington once, a Thursday night special inside the stadium for the Hoosiers’ 2017 season opener. But it didn’t have the same feel as its Saturday show, surrounded by fans outside the stadium and must-see TV for millions at home. Indiana went 9-27 over the last three seasons, far away from GameDay’s radar, right?

Mark Deal, Indiana’s assistant athletic director for alumni relations but also a former player and coach for the football program, chose this weekend for the 45-year Holiday Bowl reunion because Indiana will be playing Washington on Saturday at noon ET. Many members of the 1979 team also helped Indiana defeat No. 15 Washington in 1978, the Huskies’ last trip to Bloomington. 

When he picked this weekend over the summer, it made sense in that respect. Deal asked his college coach, Corso, to tape a video with a message to his team for the reunion, like he’d done for the last three reunions he couldn't attend.

But what has occurred in coach Curt Cignetti’s first year – a 7-0 start, a No. 13 ranking, and the Hoosiers becoming one of college football’s best stories – has given the Holiday Bowl reunion an extra special, and perhaps unexpected, feel. Corso has returned to Bloomington, where he coached the Hoosiers from 1973-82 and won the Holiday Bowl with Deal and all the players who are excited to see their coach this weekend.

“It was meant to be,” Deal said.

“We don’t need that tape anymore because we’re gonna have the real thing to talk to us. It’s great. It’s awesome. It means everything. I mean, he’s our coach. He’s our leader. We’re his players all weekend. He’s the head coach again. Friday and Saturday, he’s the head coach and we’re his players, and we’re his managers, and we’re his coaches, and we’re his graduate assistants. So we’re his players again, and this is his team. We’re just soldiers on his team. So yeah, it means everything. It just worked out that way, but it’s incredible. … I owe Lee Corso everything. I’m here because of Lee Corso. He changed my life, gave me a scholarship, gave me a chance to play college football, gave me my start in coaching.”

Welcome home, Coach Corso. pic.twitter.com/UkPARHd31q

— Indiana Hoosiers (@IUHoosiers) October 25, 2024

“We’re all very, very excited about that,” Indiana linebacker and co-captain Terry Tallen said. “I talked to coach [on Thursday], so he’s on his way and he's as excited as can be. He’s very sad to hear about Tim Clifford (the quarterback who died unexpectedly this week), but he’s very excited to be here this weekend. It means a lot to him, and it means a lot to us to have him here.”

Corso had been in Bloomington for six seasons already, but the Hoosiers had missed out on bowl eligibility by one or two wins from 1976-78. They’d finally get a shot in 1979 after a 7-4 season, getting placed in the Holiday Bowl in San Diego, Calif., against an 11-0 BYU team that was ranked No. 9 in the nation.

The Cougars entered the game averaging over 40 points per game, most recently winning 63-14 at San Diego State, and were led by All-American quarterback Marc Wilson. Tallen called BYU coach LaVell Edwards “a quarterback whisperer” and “an outstanding offensive mind.’’

But Tallen and his teammates intended to win that game behind their smash mouth brand of Big Ten football. Tallen recalls Indiana’s first team dinner in San Diego, where Corso ran down the list of rules BYU would be following in the week leading up to the game, “they don’t drink, they don’t smoke, they don’t even drink caffeine, they don’t even eat chocolate, they’ve got a curfew.”

“Here’s our rule,” Tallen recalls Corso telling the Hoosiers. “To the man, do not wear the same shirt to breakfast that you wore the night before. So the punchline was, we’ll know you’ve been out all night. But we didn’t have curfew; he let us manage ourselves and be responsible for ourselves, and there were no issues with the players. Everybody really toed the line, but it was a self-imposed line because he didn’t put any restrictions on anybody. It worked out beautifully, we were loose, we were happy. That team was a family.”

Indiana coach Lee Corso talks with quarterback Tim Clifford on the sideline. / Indiana University Archives

Keeping up with BYU would be challenging, but Indiana had a high-powered offense of its own, having scored 30-plus points in five regular-season games. The Hoosiers were led by quarterback Tim Clifford, who died Wednesday before the 45-year reunion. Clifford was named Big Ten MVP in 1979, throwing for 1,907 yards, rushing for six touchdowns and graduating as the school’s career passing leader.

“Tim Clifford led what was one of Indiana’s most exciting offenses at the time,” Tallen said. “Because he was not only a great pocket-passer drop-back passer, Tim also ran the option. … He was a true field general. He was well-respected and loved by his teammates. Tim was a great, great college quarterback. He had a very special season.”

The Hoosiers will certainly remember his Holiday Bowl performance this weekend. Clifford rushed for two touchdowns on option plays near the goal line and threw a 38-yard touchdown pass to Bob Stephenson, giving Indiana a 21-17 lead at halftime. 

Indiana and BYU traded touchdowns and field goals throughout the second half, and the Cougars punted the ball away with about seven minutes remaining, clinging to a six-point lead. The punt fell short and hit Indiana’s Craig Walls, causing a portion of BYU’s coverage team to overrun the punt.

Indiana’s Tim Wilbur scooped up the loose ball, darted down the sideline and made one cut toward the middle before breaking into the open field for a 62-yard touchdown. It gave the Hoosiers a 38-37 lead after the extra-point from kicker Kevin Kellog.

“It’s an oblong ball, but in the Hoosier state it bounced like a basketball,” Deal said. “So it was very apropos, and it bounced like a basketball right into his hands, in stride, and he just split it, just absolutely split it.”

“As we always say, thank God for Tim Wilbur,” Tallen said.

The Hoosiers had the lead, but they weren’t quite in the clear yet. BYU drove down the field and had a chance to win the game with a 27-yard field goal attempt with 11 seconds remaining. BYU kicker Brent Johnson made three field goals before this moment, so Corso knew Indiana needed a little extra help – this time from Father James Higgins, a priest who traveled with the team. 

“[Corso] turned to Father Higgins and he said, ‘Father Higgins, it’s you against six million Mormons,’” Harold Mauro, Indiana’s offensive line coach at the time, recalls. 

The kick missed wide left – perhaps blocked by Indiana’s Craig Kumerow, the announcer speculated – and Indiana won its first-ever bowl game. 

“Thank you God,” Mauro remembers Corso telling Father Higgins.

Indiana coach Lee Corso walks onto the field with his team. / Indiana University Archives

Players from the 1979 Holiday Bowl team take pride in that season, because there will never be another first. Indiana running back Lonnie Johnson rushed for 76 yards against BYU, part of a duo alongside Mike Harkrader, who rushed for 71 yards and a touchdown in the game. 

“We’ll go down in history, even after we’re long gone, as being the first team,” Johnson said. “It was pretty epic for us as players and the coaching staff, we were just so, so happy. That was very, very special for the university. … To be the first is the best feeling in the world.”

Co-captain Tony D’Orazio felt the bowl win represented that team’s mentality throughout the season. For example, the Hoosiers came back from a 26-3 halftime deficit in the 1979 season opener against Iowa and won 30-26.

D’Orazio felt there was no challenge Indiana couldn’t conquer, even against a high-scoring BYU offense. 

“It didn’t surprise me that we won that game, based on the resiliency we showed the entire season,” D’Orazio said. “... Some people went on to the NFL, some people didn’t, some people went on with their lives. But the special thing about that is that we carved that team’s legacy in the history of the Indiana football program and we’ll always have that for the rest of our lives.”

Deal remembers Indiana offensive line coach Bob Otolski motivating the Hoosiers before the Holiday Bowl, saying, “We want to be Neil Armstrong. We want to be the first.” A 2013 Indiana Football Hall of Fame inductee, Deal has been part of many Hoosier teams as a player, coach and now administrator. But the Holiday Bowl team will always stand out. 

“There have been IU bowl wins since, and hopefully there will be many more,” Deal said. “But we’re the first, and nobody can ever take that away from us.”

Along with their Holiday Bowl win, players’ time at Indiana under Corso has left a lasting impression. Lonnie Johnson is glad he never gave up on Corso during tough times.

Johnson remembers Corso being especially demanding of his running backs, which he compared to playing shortstop. In Indiana’s option offense, pitches to the running back may come high or low, but you have to catch it.

“He stressed that so much,” Johnson said. “It almost drove me crazy.”

Indiana coach Lee Corso pictured at Memorial Stadium. / Indiana University Archives

Johnson began his Indiana career on the junior varsity team, common for freshmen at the time. In a meeting after the JV team’s win over Louisville, Corso moved Johnson up to the varsity team, a proud moment. But that excitement didn’t last long.

Johnson remembers running an option play to the right during practice, when quarterback Scott Arnett tossed a ball that flew over his head, “where Michael Jordan couldn’t have gotten it.” But Johnson felt the brunt of the blame, as Corso screamed at him and demanded they run the play again. On the next play, the pitch went over his head again.

“When I picked the ball up, Lee is right there in front of my face,” Johnson recalls. “He grabs my face mask and he says, ‘Johnson, you’ll never play here, son. Do you hear me? You’ll never play.’”

Johnson, a devastated freshman, remembers going back to his dorm and telling a teammate he was going to quit the team and go back home to Akron, Ohio.

“My roommate said, ‘Coach Corso is testing you to see if you’re gonna quit.’ And when he said that, it registered to me,” Johnson said. “At first, nothing registered to me because I was like, I can’t believe this. It wasn’t my fault. He’s screaming at me. He’s spitting all in my face. He’s grabbing my facemask and telling me I’d never play here.

“The next day in camp, I had the mindset, number one, that I wasn’t gonna quit. I was just mad, talking a whole bunch of nonsense. My father was in the special forces, a Green Beret, so you know I wasn’t gonna quit. I was just talking a whole bunch of trash. But [Corso] motivated me from that point that I was gonna prove to him that I was gonna play and that I am a good football player. So every game that I played at Indiana University was that I was gonna prove to Lee Corso that you can depend on me, give me the ball, I’m gonna do my job and that you’ll be proud of me.”

Along with helping Indiana win the 1979 Holiday Bowl, Johnson rushed for 1,075 as a senior in 1980, which, at the time, was the fourth-most rushing yards in a season in program history. Enduring difficult times with Corso made his career gratifying in the end.

“I went through the whole process of being nobody to somebody,” Johnson said. “And I think that coach, he respected me, he depended on me. … Looking back, it was worth all the stress and strife.”

Indiana coach Lee Corso holds the Old Oaken Bucket Trophy after defeating Purdue. / Indiana University Archives

Deal appreciates Corso for who he was as a coach and as a person. What fans see on television – an effervescent, excitable, emotional personality – is the way Deal remembers Corso approaching everything. 

But he wasn’t just a cheerleader in practice, which Deal remembers being physical and demanding, as Corso wasn’t afraid to tear into any of his players if they made a mistake. But he balanced that by being supportive and putting his arm around players when they needed it.

Corso, now 89 years old, will reunite with the 70-plus Hoosiers who were a part of the 1979 Holiday Bowl team this weekend in Bloomington. The team is having a reunion dinner Friday night, and they’ll watch Corso entertain the masses Saturday morning on College GameDay in his return to Indiana.

“That's the kind of coach you want to play for,” Deal said. “I’d jump off Ballantine Hall for Lee Corso. I’d jump off the press box for Lee Corso, even today.”

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