{"id":1522,"date":"2025-10-17T20:51:31","date_gmt":"2025-10-17T20:51:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/media\/?p=1522"},"modified":"2025-11-28T01:27:36","modified_gmt":"2025-11-28T01:27:36","slug":"why-jelly-roll-as-college-gamedays-guest-picker-makes-zero-sense","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/media\/sports-media\/why-jelly-roll-as-college-gamedays-guest-picker-makes-zero-sense\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Jelly Roll As College GameDay\u2019s Guest Picker Makes Zero Sense"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">You won\u2019t find me complaining about Jelly Roll\u2019s music one bit. In fact, quite the contrary. I\u2019m a big fan of his work, along with his story of how he reached this point in his career after being arrested 40 times in his early years.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">However, the decision to make him the guest picker on Saturday\u2019s edition of ESPN\u2019s <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">College GameDay<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> from the Ole Miss Rebels vs. Georgia Bulldogs game in Athens, Georgia, makes zero sense at all.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">No one is questioning that <a  href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Jelly_Roll_(singer)\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Jelly Roll<\/a> (born Jason Bradley DeFord) is one of the hottest names in country music right now. This is strictly a bad business decision for ESPN to select somebody who has zero ties to Georgia or Ole Miss.<\/span><\/p>\n<h2><strong>Jelly Roll takes College GameDay<\/strong><\/h2>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">Country music star turned celebrity guest picker \ud83d\ude4c<\/p>\n<p>See you Saturday in Athens, <a  href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/JellyRoll615?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">@JellyRoll615<\/a>! <a  href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/AAG5tBrn3v\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">pic.twitter.com\/AAG5tBrn3v<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 College GameDay (@CollegeGameDay) <a  href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/CollegeGameDay\/status\/1978899124918292568?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">October 16, 2025<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Jelly Roll was born and raised in Tennessee. He graduated with an associates degree from Volunteer State College. There is no public track record of Jelly Roll ever supporting the University of Georgia, and wearing the team\u2019s attire.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">If you were curious where his allegiances lie, you wouldn\u2019t have to look too far. The Tennessee native has been known to support not one, but two of Georgia and Ole Miss\u2019 rival schools within the SEC. Jelly Roll is a fan of both of his home state SEC teams, the Tennessee Volunteers, and the Vanderbilt Commodores.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<h3><strong>Questionable guest picker selections recently<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This isn\u2019t ESPN\u2019s first questionable guest picker choice this season. Two weeks ago, comedian Theo Von, a Vanderbilt fan, was selected for the Vanderbilt Commodores vs. Alabama Crimson Tide game in Tuscaloosa. While Alabama was well-represented by former coach Nick Saban and host Rece Davis, an alum, Von\u2019s selection broke from the tradition of prioritizing the host school\u2019s ties, much like Jelly Roll\u2019s upcoming appearance.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">If you\u2019re like me, and would&#8217;ve rather seen someone with Georgia-ties featured on the show, you\u2019d probably be glad to know that there were plenty of options to choose from. Some notable Georgia alums include: <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">American Idol <\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">host Ryan Seacrest, <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Friday Night Lights<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> star Kyle Chandler, <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Inside The NBA<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> host Ernie Johnson Jr., College Football Hall of Famer Herschel Walker, WWE Hall of Famer Bill Goldberg and many more.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">As College GameDay\u2019s guest picker on Saturday, Jelly Roll has a tough act to follow. Last week, WNBA star Sabrina Ionescu had the best showing of any of the celebrity pickers this season, going 7-3 in her selections.<\/span><\/p>\n<h3><strong>James Franklin speaks out<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Jelly Roll\u2019s picks won\u2019t be the only noteworthy appearance on Saturday\u2019s show. Former Penn State Football head coach <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/media\/sports-media\/could-james-franklins-next-chapter-be-on-television\/\" target=\"_self\">James Franklin<\/a> will also join the set live for an exclusive interview, speaking out for the first time since his dismissal.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">Be sure to tune in tomorrow as James Franklin will join the set live in Athens for an exclusive interview. <a  href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/ybdY8jyGAX\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">pic.twitter.com\/ybdY8jyGAX<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 College GameDay (@CollegeGameDay) <a  href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/CollegeGameDay\/status\/1979199725510259061?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">October 17, 2025<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>You won\u2019t find me complaining about Jelly Roll\u2019s music one bit. In fact, quite the contrary. I\u2019m a big fan of his work, along with his story of how he reached this point in his career after being arrested 40 times in his early years.\u00a0 However, the decision to make him the guest picker on [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5665,"featured_media":1525,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[267,264,238],"tags":[355,75,239,302],"class_list":["post-1522","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-espn","category-news","category-sports-media","tag-college-gameday","tag-featured","tag-james-franklin","tag-nick-saban"],"modified_by":"Michael Kovacs, ADMIN","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/media\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1522","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/media\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/media\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/media\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5665"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/media\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1522"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/media\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1522\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1527,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/media\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1522\/revisions\/1527"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/media\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1525"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/media\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1522"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/media\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1522"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/media\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1522"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}