If you ask college football fans who they think the best Group of Five quarterback is, you’ll be hearing the same three names more often than not. Austin Reed of Western Kentucky, Frank Harris of UTSA, but there’s one name you’ll likely hear the most. That name is Grayson McCall, who has seemingly single handedly turned Coastal Carolina into a powerhouse in the Sun Belt. You might be wondering how the rise to stardom started for McCall and the Chanticleers, and that’s exactly what we’re doing here today. 

Before McCall

December 13th, 2000 was a boring day in the grand scheme of things. Al Gore delivered his concession speech, so that’s kinda important, I guess. There’s one more thing of note that happened that day, however, and that was the birth of Grayson McCall.

McCall grew up in Indian Trail, North Carolina, a moderately sized southeast suburb of Charlotte. He wasn’t the only star quarterback in town, however, as he was friends with fellow quarterback Sam Howell. McCall was nowhere near as highly recruited as Howell, as his only offers were from Gardner-Webb, Eastern Kentucky, Chattanooga, Army, and Coastal Carolina. Let’s take a deep dive into the history of the Chants, shall we?

Grayson McCall is actually older than the Coastal Carolina football program, as the Chants didn’t start playing football until 2003. The Chants became an FCS power, going 114-54 in their brief stint at the FCS level, and the Sun Belt officially invited them to join for the 2017 season. Among those seasons were four double-digit win seasons, but the Chants never made it past the quarterfinals of the FCS Playoffs. In 2015, someone thought “you know what would be funny,” and they decided to give Brooks Stadium a teal playing surface.

The 2017 season was brutal for the Chants, as they went 3-9, with the worst loss being a 52-10 loss to FCS Western Illinois. They somehow almost beat Arkansas, which absolutely blows my mind. This was also the year they had the biggest win in the history of their program, as they invaded Moscow and left the Kibbie Dome with a win.

The 2018 season started out with promise, as they were 5-3 in their first eight games, including upset wins over Louisiana and UAB, unfortunately, it all fell apart in the end, as they lost their final four games to finish 5-7. They hit the jackpot in recruiting, however, as one of the key pieces of the recruiting class was quarterback Grayson McCall. 

McCall was only a Two-Star recruit, and was pretty much unknown to anyone outside of Indian Trail. A key factor is that he didn’t go to a major high school, in fact he’s one of the only two people in the “Notable Alumni” section of the school’s wikipedia page

The Pirates (Porter Ridge’s Mascot) ran a triple option, and as someone who has watched a triple option high school team before (shoutout to Madison County High School), they’re very hard to stop unless your team is significantly more talented. This doesn’t mean they were bad, as they made the state semis in 2019, before being knocked out by the eventual champions East Forsyth. East Forsyth finished the season 15-0 and ranked 5th in the state, but McCall’s Porter Ridge was highly ranked as well, finishing 17th in the state after going 10-5.

Porter Ridge had plenty of blowouts in 2019, so here are the ones that can be considered a “Shield Your Eyes” blowout.

Beat Piedmont (2-9) by a score of 48-6

Beat East Mecklenburg (1-9) by a score of 49-7

Beat Independance (6-6) by a score of 45-7

Beat Garinger (3-8) By a score of 51-7

Sure, they weren’t against the greatest teams, but not every team is able to have those kinds of wins so frequently, and of course, those wins were orchestrated by none other than Grayson McCall.

McCall’s passing that season was decent at best, but his running ability was absolutely mind boggling. On 175 carries, he had 1460 rushing yards, averaged over 100 a game, and had TWENTY ONE RUSHING TOUCHDOWNS A QUARTERBACK

WHAT

Coastal Carolina knew that they had found their future

McCall Comes To Conway

McCall didn’t see the field much in his freshman year, but the tiny bit of playing time he got, he was spectacular. Completed all four passes that he threw, and had a touchdown. Coastal ended up going 5-7 yet again, but  they easily could have gone 7-5, 8-4, or even 9-3 if just a few small things went their way. The 2020 season could be the year they could go 6-6 or 7-5 and make their first bowl game. Let’s just say they did a little bit better than they expected. 

Before the season, they decided that Grayson McCall would be the starting quarterback for the season, being chosen over Fred Payton and Bryce Carpenter. In the first game of the season, McCall wanted to make sure the entire college football world knew his name, as he was responsible for all five touchdowns scored by the Chants against Kansas, as he had three passing touchdowns and two rushing touchdowns.

Calling the passing attack against Campbell explosive would be a gross understatement, as McCall would pass for 273 yards on only 11 completed passes. That’s 24.8 yards per completion, absolute insanity. Coastal wiped the floor with Arkansas State the next week, and they were somehow 3-0 and receiving AP votes. Their biggest game thus far was right around the corner, though.

A week and a half later, they took a trip to Lafayette to play the #21 ranked team in the country, the Louisiana Ragin’ Cajuns. This turned out to be one of the most evenly played games you’ll ever watch. Here’s the scoring summary, and when I say evenly played, I really mean it.

First Quarter: 

Louisiana Touchdown

Coastal Touchdown

Second Quarter:

Coastal Touchdown (Missed PAT)

Louisiana Touchdown (Missed PAT)

Third Quarter:

Coastal Touchdown

Louisiana Touchdown

Fourth Quarter:

Coastal Touchdown

Louisiana Touchdown

Coastal Field Goal

Coastal got the win in one of the games of the year, and they finished the game with one more yard on offense than Louisiana. 

Fast Forward a few weeks, and the Chants are ranked 14th, and are the planned hosts of College Gameday as their longtime rival Liberty comes to town. That is, until they had to cancel because of COVID, this left the Chants with a problem, they needed to find an opponent. That’s when none other than BYU knocked on the door, and that’s when the most legendary game of the season became a reality.

While the game wasn’t high scoring, it had everything else going for it. It was chippy, passionate, it was everything a college football game should be. It also had one of the greatest endings in recent memory, with Zach Wilson driving the Cougars down the field, only for them to fall within inches of a miracle victory. Coastal just got the biggest win in program history, they won 22-17.

They had another thriller in their final regular season game, beating Troy 42-38, as they prepared for the Sun Belt Championship against Louisiana. However, due to COVID-19 protocols, they had to cancel the game and they were crowned as co-champs. It was onto their bowl game, and it was a big one. They finally get their chance to play Liberty.

This was another game that was an absolute classic. McCall had one of the best games of his career, but a blocked field goal in overtime sent the Chants home and ended their perfect season. No matter how it ended, this was still a great season for the Chants, and everyone was excited for their future.

Aside from a trap game against Buffalo, Coastal absolutely steamrolled through the first half of their season, as they scored at least 49 points in six out of their first seven games. McCall was a key part of it, as the only game in that span where he threw for under 200 yards was in a game when they brought in the second stringers due to it being a blowout. They then lost a heartbreaker to Appalachian State, but the bigger heartbreaker happened in the following game.

In the win over Troy, Grayson McCall suffered an upper body injury, causing him to miss the games against Georgia Southern and Georgia State (I didn’t learn about it until I was watching Coastal warm up before the Southern game and couldn’t find McCall), they were able to handle Georgia Southern easily, but they were unfortunately upset by Georgia State, but when we needed him the most, he returned. 

He led Coastal to wins over Texas State and an overtime win over South Alabama, but their losses to Appalachian State and Georgia State left them out of the Conference Championship. 

For their bowl game, they experienced some Deja Vu, as they were put in the Cure Bowl, this time it was against Northern Illinois instead of Liberty, and oh boy what a game this was.

I wouldn’t blame you if you thought someone was setting up their New Year equipment, because this game had serious offensive fireworks. It was the definition of a back and forth game, as Coastal couldn’t stop NIU, and NIU couldn’t stop Coastal. In an ending that was definitely a bit controversial, the clock ran down on NIU and Coastal won their first ever bowl game by a score of 47-41. 

A lot of people thought that Grayson McCall would transfer after the bowl game, even I thought that he was more than likely gone. However, we would soon get answers from Grayson, and it resulted in one of the most iconic sentences in college football history

“When I say I piss teal, I mean it”

The Sun Belt decided to hop on the realignment bandwagon, but the changes were made a year before everyone else. Marshall, Old Dominion, and James Madison are joining the East, Southern Miss is joining the West, and Troy is changing divisions. 

This season was one of the most frustrating seasons I’ve ever experienced as a sports fan. Coastal won a really fun game against Army, made me want to pull my hair out against Gardner-Webb, made me want to smash my head into the wall against Buffalo, but finally had a good game against Georgia State. Unfortunately, McCall was injured during that Georgia State game, which especially sucked considering that this was my first time actually seeing him play in person. 

You could tell that he really wanted to get back into the game, but the Head Coach whose name will remain anonymous, wanted him to stay out of the game to avoid further injury. He returned the next week when he finally played against Georgia Southern for the first time after missing the games in 2020 and 2021. As you already know, this game definitely won’t be primarily known for McCall’s effort, as it’s best known for being the game with the Myrtle Hurdle (quick tangent, how the hell was the Myrtle Hurdle only number ten on the SportsCenter top 10, I know damn well that it would be number one if an Ohio State or Georgia player did it), but McCall had an outstanding outing.

Back to the summary of the season, the ULM game made me want to lather myself in peanut butter and ground beef and then going to a dog shelter, the Old Dominion game is one we’ll get back to later, the Marshall game made me want to spin in a chair for 10 minutes and see how much I get messed up, but let’s just get to the Old Dominion game.

Good News: Grayson McCall has the best game of his career

Bad News: Blake Watson decided to become a literal god and get a first down every time he touches the ball

Onto the Appalachian State game, this was such a fun game, it was really good football, Coastal finally stormed the field, unfortunately, Grayson McCall got injured and had to miss the rest of the regular season.

The first game without McCall was against Southern Miss

GUESS WHO WENT TO THAT GAME

Anyways, it was a fun game, sure it was frustrating to watch, but that’s what happens when you’re missing your star quarterback.

The next game was initially going to be against Virginia, but due to the tragic mass shooting that killed three members of the Virginia football team, the game had to be canceled.

This leads us to the final game of the regular season, Coastal Carolina vs James Madison. As much as I want to skip these final three games, I need to go the full 100 yards. Coastal ended up being slaughtered 47-7, and James Madison fans started complaining that Coastal Carolina’s East Division win should have an asterisk next to it, and they even made championship rings for some god forsaken reason.

I’m just gonna say that while I do think that the rule where they can’t make the conference championship or a bowl game the year after moving up to the FBS is a stupid rule, and that JMU definitely deserved to be in the conference championship, JMU was aware of the rule when they joined the Sun Belt. There’s no asterisk, it’s just the rules, it doesn’t matter if you like it or not. 

For the Sun Belt Championship game against Troy, it was about 50/50 on if McCall would be playing, but soon we got our answers. McCall was going to be playing, and he had one of the best games of his career. Unfortunately, the defense let the Chants down, and Troy won pretty easily.

Following this, it was pretty hard to be a Coastal fan, everyone was clowning on you, the anonymous head coach announced that he would be leaving for Liberty, and Grayson McCall announced that he would be entering the transfer portal after the bowl game, which would end up being the Birmingham Bowl against East Carolina. 

Coastal was keeping it close for the first 20 or so minutes, and eventually took the lead halfway through the second quarter with a Grayson McCall rushing touchdown, unfortunately, he landed on his head, he had to leave the game, and just like that it looked like the Grayson McCall era at Coastal Carolina had ended. The rest of the game was dominated by East Carolina, and Coastal would end the season 9-4 with a negative point differential, they were the bizarro version of 2021 Nebraska.

It was looking like Grayson was going to be heading to Auburn, but an academic holdup prevented him from becoming a Tiger. Of course, everyone immediately decided that it was because he was stupid and his grades sucked, but I personally think it was because he had trouble transferring his credits from Coastal Carolina to Auburn, both ideas could be completely false though.

It was January 1st 2023, I was in a rental car riding from Portland to Seattle in order to catch our flight back to Atlanta. I saw that I had a notification from Pete Thamel, so I checked it. I audibly cheered when I saw what it was. Grayson McCall had withdrawn from the Transfer Portal and will be returning for his Senior year. Will he succeed in Tim Beck’s offense? Will he be able to regain his running abilities? Will he be able to stay healthy? We’ll have to wait to see the answers, as the Grayson McCall era in Coastal Carolina continues.