It’s been disconcerting to see the rather muted appearances of a college football fixture like Erin Andrews this season. Yes, she’s been around, and yes, she’s certainly got an excuse for a decreased presence, but we’ve been a little disheartened all the same. Has this whole peephole stalker thing really gotten to her?

If we had to guess, we’d say “yes, it has.” That’s because in her recent interview with FANHOUSE, Andrews still had good things to say about her job; she just also had good things to say about things that weren’t her job, namely cutting back her work and, in her words, starting a family.

From FANHOUSE:

Andrews, 31, said it’s still “a blast” covering college football. But in the future, she said she’ll have to reduce her schedule and make her personal life a bigger priority.

She said she doesn’t have a timetable how long she wants to remain a sideline reporter with ESPN, but she said she wants to remain in sports.

“I always want to stay in sports,” Andrews said. “But at some point, I have to start thinking about starting a family. That’s why I’ll start cutting back. I have to take my personal life into account. I can’t imagine not being a part of sports in the fall. I see my future [remaining] in TV. The only change coming is to start thinking about my personal life and family. It’s kind of time.”

“Kind of time,” in fact, might be underselling it. Believe it or not, since she certainly doesn’t look it, but Andrews is already 31. Of course, women much older than that still have children (mine was 34, for example, and we’ll bet plenty of readers had older mothers than that when they were born), but ask any woman when she’s 21 if she still wants to be single and childless with no immediate prospect of either  a decade later. You’ll probably not get many enthusiastic responses.

Moreover, it’s apparent that she isn’t quite the same yet this season after the peephole incident. Perhaps that’ll come as time goes on, and Thursday’s Cincinnati-USF game just minutes from her family’s home will probably help ease that along.

Or, conversely, maybe it won’t. Maybe it’ll be another reminder that people aren’t really meant to do her job for a living, to live on the road without much of a homebase and family. Who knows? Either way, it’s a shame that her career seems to have been pushed onto the downslope, because beauty aside, she’s consistently been one of the best-prepared, most professional sideline reporter in college football.

But if it’s time, it’s time. And as long as she’s describing herself as “hanging in there,” it’s probably sounding like time to her.