Ever heard of the announcer’s version of a Michael Jordan flu game?
Well, you have now.
And like MJ, it happened on one of sports’ biggest stages
When Alabama beat Georgia in the 2018 College Football Playoff National Championship, Chris Fowler wasn’t feeling himself. The longtime ESPN CFB play-by-play voice has one of the more iconic calls on Tua Tagovailoa’s game-winning 41-yard touchdown pass to Devonta Smith on 2nd-and-26.
And he did so under duress, more specifically, under the weather.
On You Better You Bet with host Nick Kostos, Fowler was going through some of his favorite calls, and he landed on one of the more thrilling National Championship games (and endings) in recent memory and CFP history. He called it a ” once-a-career kind of thing” before revealing he called the game with Kirk Hersbtreit with a 102-degree fever.
What is your favorite Chris Fowler call?@cbfowler remembers his Jordan Flu game in the Alabama-Georgia 2018 National Championship with @TheKostos & @FemiAbebefe! 🔥
Listen to the FULL interview on the YBYB Podcast ➡️ https://t.co/RC7Ey7EkeQ pic.twitter.com/KgSCP0FcWL
— You Better You Bet (@YouBetterYouBet) November 8, 2024
“I felt like sh*t that night,” he said, “but it was an amazing game. And you get very few chances to see something like that, so you kind of just push it. That was my Jordan flu game.”
Fowler tried to downplay it, but Kostos pressed for more, pointing out that no one knew he was sick.
“I hope not; you’re supposed to hide it,” Fowler said when pressed on the fact that nobody knew. “I mean, it wasn’t a perfect game. There was a couple of things where I was trying to keep my focus. And when you call a game like that, usually, not for an hour or two after that, for days, weeks, even a year or two, you remember everything about that game. You have a very clear recall. Sometimes, when a golfer can recall every single swing out of the 70 he took in a round, it’s like that in play-by-play.
“I had no memory of the outcome…I was so cationic at the game that at the postgame party, which I actually went to, I had to leave, ‘What am I doing here drinking at a party?’ I had to get to bed…A lot of that game was fuzzy, which is weird. It shows what a fever can do to the mind. But it’s nobody’s business to know you’re feeling bad—you just gotta do the job.”
Michael Jordan did the job in Game 5 of the 1997 NBA Finals.
Chris Fowler did the job in the 2018 CFP National Championship game.
