Perry shows Rebel love on ESPN set

Katy Perry’s entrance into ESPN’s College GameDay was a guarded one.

The singer was the pregame show’s guest picker Saturday at Ole Miss. As she made her way to the stage through the fans in attendance, Perry was surrounded by 10 state troopers as well as others.

She wore a pink football jersey and brought a hot toddy for each cast member.

Perry’s manager graduated from Ole Miss and the singer has a concert in Memphis tonight so she was in the vicinity to make the trip down to Oxford, Miss., for the pregame show. The game between Ole Miss and Alabama is her first college football game ever.

Because of her Ole Miss connections, she chose the Rebels, though Lee Corso, Kirk Herbstreit and Desmond Howard all chose Alabama. She was the second consecutive singer to be a guest picker on GameDay. The previous week in Columbia, S.C., Kenny Chesney was on the GameDay set. He’s friends with South Carolina Coach Steve Spurrier.

She also broke out a corn dog (and subsequently a plate of them) when picking the winner between LSU and Auburn.

Before the picks began, host Chris Fowler brought up the possibility of Perry playing the halftime show at the Super Bowl. Perry acknowledged that discussions had taken place but said that she would not pay to perform and put the onus on the NFL.

In August, a report emerged that the league wanted musical acts to pay to be the halftime show.

AP/BRUCE NEWMAN Singer Katy Perry (right), with ESPN’s College GameDay host Chris Fowler, was the guest selector on the show and made no secret she was picking Ole Miss against Alabama in Saturday’s game. Her manager went to Ole Miss.