Sideline reporter Jamie Erdahl gracefully stepped in when CBS lost its announcing booth

Wow.

One thing we’re probably not nearly aware enough about, as fans, is how complicated it is to broadcast any sport — but especially one as intricate as football.

You’d probably be flabbergasted by the cost of the equipment and the sheer number of people involved in bringing you a game. Or the amount of time spent preparing to make those few hours on Saturday happen on your screen. Because on your end, the experience is usually just two people in a booth and one on a sideline. It seems simple.

Yet a snafu in Saturday’s Alabama-LSU game show just how delicate the whole operation is — and forced sideline reporter Jamie Erdahl to react quickly after the men calling the game, Brad Nessler and Gary Danielson, were dropped from the broadcast.

Erdahl took over the call for about two minutes of game time, which is an enormously difficult task. Unlike Nessler and Danielson, she’s seeing the game from the sideline, which is the absolute worst vantage point for describing what’s going on in football. The reason she’s down there, after all, is to capture the emotion of the players and describe the goings on on each sideline. She supposed to be in the weeds a bit, not seeing the game clearly.

Besides that, Erdahl presumably did not have rosters and notes in front of her, and had not prepared during the week for the role she found herself in. She had help from the production truck, sure, but if you’ve ever had a voice literally in your ear while trying to think and react you know how hard that can be.

Erdahl was quick to credit what she’s learned from Nessler, Danielson  and other mentors — and to use this as a teachable moment for sideline reporters.

The internet loved Erdahl’s work under pressure:

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