Samantha Ponder will no longer be patrolling the sidelines for ESPN this upcoming football season.
On Thursday, Ponder announced on Instagram that she is giving up her sideline reporter duties so that she can spend more time with family. She will still be appearing on College Football Live, College GameDay and SportsCenter on Fridays and Saturdays during college football season.
Ponder, who is married to Christian Ponder, said she wants the Oakland Raiders quarterback to be able to spend more time with the couple’s daughter.
“Taking Scout away from her dad 5 days a week was incredibly difficult for me and Christian but I wanted to honor the commitment I made,” she wrote. “Thank you to everyone w/ Thursday Night Football & everyone at every school we covered who treated me with respect and kindness. I will never forget the last 4 years of games and more importantly, relationships.”
As you may know, Sam and Christian named their first daughter after a Florida State coaching legend.
I’m sure we speak for a lot of people when we say we’ll miss seeing Sam working games on Saturdays and Thursday nights.
