Remembering Katy Perry's legendary Ole Miss 'College GameDay' appearance, nine years later

Over the course of its celebrated history as a staple of college football Saturdays, ESPN’s “College GameDay” has been defined, at least in some part, by its celebrity guest pickers.

While broadcasting from the location of one of the sport’s biggest games in a given week, the show will bring aboard a famous figure to help pick games at the end of the program. Often, it’s someone with a connection to the host school or region. Will Ferrell, Charles Barkley, Bill Murray, LeBron James and Ric Flair have been among those who have sat alongside Lee Corso and Kirk Herbstreit on the “GameDay” set.

While making its first-ever visit to Ole Miss in October 2014, “GameDay” didn’t pick a notable former Rebels player — think Archie or Eli Manning — or a celebrity with ties to the state. Instead, it opted for pop star Katy Perry, a California native who, at that point in her life, had never attended a college football game.

What seemed like an unusual, even nonsensical pairing worked in a way that few, if any, could have possibly envisioned. Perry’s nearly 13-minute appearance on the show’s set turned out to be one of the most memorable moments in the history of a show that’s in its 37th season on the air. And that’s only a part of the legend that surrounds her trip to Oxford.

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With Wednesday marking the nine-year anniversary of her cameo, let’s take a look back at Perry’s unforgettable day at the Grove, and how it came to be:

Why was Katy Perry at Ole Miss?

Before Perry was even chosen as the celebrity guest picker, the mere arrival of “GameDay” in Oxford was a big deal.

Until 2014, Ole Miss was only one of two SEC programs that had never played host to the show, with in-state rival Mississippi State being the other. Herbstreit, Corso and company even visited lowly Vanderbilt before making their way to the Rebels.

That all changed in the opening month of the 2014 season. Ole Miss, behind a high-powered offense, raced out to a 4-0 start and a No. 11 ranking in the Coaches Poll. With No. 1 Alabama heading to town for an Oct. 4 matchup, “GameDay” decided to make its long-awaited trip to Oxford.

When it came time to choose a celebrity guest picker to bring on set, an unlikely choice emerged.

By 2014, Perry was near the height of her stardom: Each of her previous two albums, "Teenage Dream" and "Prism," reached No. 1 on the Billboard chart. From 2008-13, she had 13 top-10 singles, including nine that climbed to No. 1 on the charts.

At first glance, Perry was a specious selection. Born and raised in Santa Barbara, California, she had no obvious ties to Mississippi or the south in general beyond collaborating with Juicy J, a member of the famed Memphis hip-hop group Three 6 Mafia, on her 2013 single "Dark Horse."

However, there were connections that made her a logical enough fit or, if you’d like to put it that way, a dark horse. Her manager, Bradford Cobb, is a 1996 Ole Miss graduate who for 10 years had been telling her about the Grove and games at Vaught-Hemingway Stadium. Additionally, her mentor, songwriter and record producer Glen Ballard, is a Mississippi native who attended Ole Miss in the 1970s.

Perry’s arrival in Mississippi made logistical sense, too. She was in the middle of a U.S. tour that had her performing in Texas the night before the Ole Miss-Alabama matchup and she had Saturday off before a show in Memphis on Sunday.

According to a 2016 story from AL.com, Michael Thompson, Ole Miss’ senior associate AD for communications and marketing, put Perry’s camp and ESPN’s production team in touch and, ultimately, a match was made.

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Katy Perry’s ‘College GameDay’ appearance

Before Perry even got close to the “GameDay” set, preparations had to be made for one of the most famous people in the world to be dropped into the middle of the controlled chaos of an SEC town on a fall Saturday.

As fans and tailgaters started to realize Perry had arrived, police shut down the surrounding streets because the crowd had grown so large. When it came time for her to appear on camera, Perry received an escort to the set befitting of a world-famous pop singer, with police flanking her on all sides as she moved through the tightly packed crowd at the Grove while carrying a tray full of mugs of hot toddies.

Wearing a pink sweater with the No. 86 and her hair pulled tightly into a pair of red buns, she took a seat between Herbstreit and host Chris Fowler.

From there, the fun began. She pulled out an oversized pencil to counter Corso’s famous ‘not so fast, my friend’ retort when he disagreed with her pick for the Mississippi State-Texas A&M game. When she chose Auburn over LSU, she pulled out a corndog and held it in the air for several seconds (seemingly in relation to the well-known college football meme that "LSU fans smell like corn dogs," which reporteldy originated in a 2006 Auburn message board).

When it came time for Oklahoma-TCU predictions, she asked “Is this the one that has the Cocks in it?” before moving on to another subject related to the matchup. “I’m picking this one based on looks,” she said, staring longingly into the camera. “Trevor Knight, do you hear me? The quarterback from Oklahoma we don’t mind, so I’m going to go with him.”

(She later told Knight, the Sooners’ sophomore quarterback, to call her while making a phone gesture with her thumb and pinky finger).

When revealing her pick of Ohio State in its game against Maryland, she held up a heart-shaped cutout with a picture of Herbstreit, a former Buckeyes quarterback, from his playing days at the center of it.

Once it came time to select a winner between the Rebels and Crimson Tide, there was little question which way Perry would go. She got up from the desk, turned back to the crowd and screamed “Are you ready?” before leading the swarm of fans in the Hotty Toddy chant.

Katy Perry 'College GameDay' record

Central as it is to the “GameDay” mystique, the celebrity guest-picker is often a varied experience. Some famous faces arrive to the set having clearly done at least a small bit of research while others get by simply on their charm, charisma and aura.

In Perry’s case, she did quite well: She went 7-2 in her picks and was the only person between herself, Corso, Herbstreit and Desmond Howard to correctly call Ole Miss’ 23-17 upset of Alabama. Here's how she picked each of the games, with the actual result in parentheses.

Correct predictions bolded

• No. 12 Mississippi State over No. 6 Texas A&M (Bulldogs wins 48-31)

• Tennessee over Florida (Gators win 10-9)

• No. 5 Auburn over No. 15 LSU (Auburn wins 41-7)

• No. 4 Oklahoma over No. 25 TCU (Horned Frogs win 37-33)

• No. 20 Ohio State over Maryland (Buckeyes win 52-24)

• No. 10 Michigan State over No. 19 Nebraska (Spartans win 27-22)

• Rutgers over Michigan (Scarlet Knights win 26-24)

• No. 9 Notre Dame over No. 14 Stanford (Fighting Irish win 17-14)

• No. 11 Ole Miss over No. 3 Alabama (Rebels win 23-17)

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What followed Katy Perry’s 'College GameDay' appearance?

Between the daily demands of fame and a tour stop the next day, it would have been easy, perhaps even understandable, for Perry to jet away from Oxford once her “GameDay” obligations were complete.

She didn’t, though.

With a red Ole Miss visor on her head, Perry watched the game at Vaught-Hemingway Stadium. She was spotted hugging Rebel Black Bear, the school’s 4-year-old mascot. She posed for a video with Ole Miss’ Rebelettes.

Once the game kicked off, she was seen passionately cheering on the Rebels as Bo Wallace threw for 251 yards and three touchdowns, two of which came in the final six minutes, to lead Ole Miss to a come-from-behind win against Alabama, its first victory against the Crimson Tide since 2003.

Following the win, videos began circulating of Perry partying with locals at Oxford bars and soaking in the euphoria that had engulfed the town. In one viral clip, she downed a drink before jumping off of a raised surface and into the arms of the crowd.

Needless to say, by the time she finally left Oxford for Memphis, she had left an impression.

In 2021, Ole Miss again hosted “GameDay,” raising the natural question of whether Perry would make an encore appearance, particularly since she was in Nashville that Wednesday attending the CMA Awards. She responded to a tweet from Rebels coach Lane Kiffin asking her to come back by saying she was “All board the Lane Train” before stumping for Ole Miss quarterback Matt Corral for the Heisman Trophy.

Ultimately, she didn’t make it back. In a video posted by the Ole Miss football Twitter account, she said she was in the middle of rehearsing for her Las Vegas residency before announcing that Kiffin himself would be the guest picker.

“Remember, Lane,” she said. “You’ve got to beat seven. Seven — it’s the big number. I hope you win. I know you will. Hotty Toddy! I love you. Go Rebels!”

Perhaps it was for the best, though. Ole Miss didn’t need Perry’s infectious energy to win, defeating Texas A&M 29-19 in a top-20 matchup. Her 2014 visit can live on as a standalone experience that, almost a decade later, still resonates.

This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Remembering Katy Perry's legendary Ole Miss 'College GameDay' appearance