For the past five years, football fans have gotten used to seeing Faith Hill strut her long legs across the television screen on Sunday night as she belts out “Waiting All Day For Sunday Night”, the Sunday night football anthem based on a Joan Jett song. But the time has come for Hill to hand over the reins to a new country star, and Carrie Underwood says she’s up for the task.

“We were definitely mindful — she had put her mark on it for so many years,” Underwood said. “We definitely wanted to go in and make sure we switched gears a little bit and made it sound more like me. And changed up the look and the feel just so it wasn’t, you know, the same song with a different blondie up there singing it.”

Underwood says she didn’t go into it with the intention of making the song sound a little more country and a little less rock-and-roll, but because she used her own producer there are pieces of her injected into the music.

“I used my producer so there are going to be some elements that sound like me, of course, that’s what we wanted. But we weren’t like, “Hey, let’s use some fiddle,” or, “Hey, let’s use some steel guitar.” … We just wanted to make it me and make it fit the situation,” she said.

Underwood has a full plate for the rest of the year; besides the new theme song, she’s also set to star in a live, televised version of “The Sound Of Music” this Christmas on NBC and will be co-hosting the CMA awards on November 6 with Brad Paisley.

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