Who is Grayson McCall? CCU’s young QB has been a football fanatic nearly since birth
What was Grayson McCall’s favorite cartoon as a child?
Was NFL Films ever animated?
“I remember he was probably 2 or 3 and he wanted to watch the NFL channel that just played all different football games over and over and over, and all the other kids were watching cartoons,” said McCall’s mother, Lisa McCall. “That was the show he watched while his sister was watching Barney. And he’d tell me all about it. He knew more about it than I did. That was his thing.”
It was football then, and it’s football now for McCall, who has led Coastal Carolina to a 4-0 start and top 25 national ranking this season as a redshirt freshman quarterback.
McCall’s quick success at Coastal isn’t all that surprising to his high school football coach at Porter Ridge High in Indian Trail, North Carolina, Michael Hertz. He recognized McCall’s potential for excellence upon first meeting him after taking over the Pirates program prior to McCall’s sophomore year.
“He’s the real deal,” Hertz said. “He’s a very likeable young man with a lot of charisma. He goes into a room and everyone knows he’s there and he lights up the room with his smile and with his personality. If there was ever somebody that was meant to play quarterback and be out in front and lead, it’s him, and I noticed that from the first time I met him.”
Fascinated by football
McCall played multiple sports growing up including basketball and baseball, and was good enough to play on a traveling Little League all-star baseball team at the age of 12 that played in a televised tournament in Cooperstown, New York.
“As much as he loved it, when it came football time, it was football time and the rest was just not important,” Lisa McCall said. “For as long as I can remember that has just been his passion.”
He gave up baseball after middle school but continued to play basketball through high school, displaying his athleticism as a small forward who had both talent and a feel for the game. “He’s an all-around athlete,” Hertz said.
McCall exhibited athletic fearlessness early in life while playing daily outdoor games with his brother Jordan, who was about 10 years older, and mostly older kids in his neighborhood. “He wasn’t afraid. He was in the midst of it,” said Lisa McCall, an administrative assistant at Carolina Neurosurgery and Spine Associates in Charlotte.
“Since he was a little boy that was his dream to play football at a college, and of course all little boys hope to go to the NFL one day, and who knows the chances of that?” she said.
A high school star
McCall, who has not been permitted to speak to the media by CCU coach Jamey Chadwell per his policy to prohibit freshman from doing interviews, is 6-foot-3 and 200 pounds.
But when Hertz was hired at Porter Ridge, McCall had 6-foot-2 height, long arms and running ability but was very slim before he began to work out intensely following his sophomore season.
“There was no doubt that he was the best player,” said Hertz, who immediately installed McCall as his starting QB. “He’d been a great player coming up through middle school and high school and we knew all about it. It was pretty evident to us very early that he had the talent to be very special, so we wanted to give him as many repetitions as we could at quarterback while he was young.”
As a freshman, McCall had started the year on varsity, dropped to JV after an injury and then dressed for both squads later in the season. “He was the first freshman that got to play on the varsity team . . . That was probably really scary for him, and mostly me,” Lisa McCall said. “They’re big and they look like men out there and he was still this scrawny little boy.”
McCall showed no signs of capitulating, however. “He was such a great competitor. I really love that in him,” Hertz said. “Even as a sophomore he was never scared, and we played a lot of teams from Charlotte that were really, really talented and big and strong, and he never once would back down.
“He really just loves playing under the lights, and I just love that aspect from my quarterback. The guys would rally around him even when he was young. . . . I said, ‘This kid’s got it all, and if we can help him put it all together we’re going to be pretty special and he’s going to be pretty special.’ ”
Hertz and offensive coordinator John Castator installed a spread triple-option shotgun offense, and McCall made it easier on the new coaching staff with his leadership and character.
“Grayson just demonstrated a lot of things by example: being there early in practice, film study, being positive on the sidelines, encouraging teammates, encouraging the defense when he wasn’t out there, just a lot of leading by example and doing the right things that a quarterback should do to lead his team,” Hertz said.
In three years as a starter, McCall threw for 3,863 yards and 34 touchdowns and rushed for 3,003 yards and 41 touchdowns.
“You’re seeing right now he’s a gun triple-option quarterback,” Castator said. “He can read defenses, he’s got a cannon of an arm, and he’s also a run threat. He hasn’t had to do it but he can throw it 60 yards easily. He just really hasn’t had to with the offense he’s running.”
McCall led the Pirates to a 7-5 season and playoff berth as a sophomore following three consecutive losing seasons, including a 1-10 record his freshman year in Class 4A, the state’s second-largest classification.
That improved to eight wins and a second-round playoff loss to eventual state champion Harding University his junior year, and 10 wins and state semifinal loss to eventual state champion East Forsyth his senior year in 2018.
“It was a progression with him each year getting a little better,” said Hertz, whose team plays a few of the larger Class 4AA schools in Charlotte each year and went 7-6 without McCall last season. “We never entered the playoffs as a high seed, we always were an 8 or a 9 [seed], but we knew we were just as good as anyone else.”
McCall was named the Southwestern 4A Conference Player of the Year in 2017. “That says a lot about the respect he earned even from big 4A Charlotte schools,” Castator said.
Hertz said McCall was offered college scholarships by CCU and Army as well as FCS schools Eastern Kentucky, Tennessee-Chattanooga and Gardner-Webb, who all run or did run a form of an option offense. North Carolina and Wake Forest also showed interest.
“There were a lot of people asking about him, that’s for sure,” Hertz said. “I never spent more time talking about a player than I did Grayson McCall.”
McCall’s high school offense made him a perfect fit for Chadwell’s spread option at CCU. “Tons of kudos to coach Chadwell. He definitely did his homework to see the talent in Grayson and to recognize what a fit he would be for Coastal,” Castator said.
Quick rise at CCU
As a true freshman last year, McCall played in just two non-conference games in September versus Norfolk State and Massachusetts and was 4-for-4 for 25 yards and a TD while rushing twice for 11 yards.
He was competing this offseason for the starting job against juniors Fred Payton and Bryce Carpenter, who had each started at least eight games over the past two seasons, and was set back by missing about three weeks of team activities in July because he was quarantined through coronavirus contact tracing.
But an opportunity emerged when Payton missed nearly two weeks this fall with a sore Achilles tendon, and Carpenter and McCall shared snaps with the first-team offense. Chadwell made the surprise decision to start McCall in the opener at Kansas and he accounted for more than 200 yards of offense and all five CCU touchdowns in a 38-23 win.
“He had a good spring practice, so I knew he had a chance there,” Chadwell said. “That [quarantine] put him behind, but we knew his talent was there and he just needed to get opportunities and get reps. Fred Payton got hurt during fall camp with his Achilles, so Grayson was able to get more and more opportunities there and took advantage of it.”
Through four games, McCall has completed 59 of 87 passes (68%) for 930 yards and 11 touchdowns with one interception, and is second on the team in rushing with 184 yards and three scores on 42 carries.
“For me it was more of a matter of when and not if,” Hertz said. “He’s just too talented and he really demonstrated a ton of leadership and maturity his senior year, and I was just really hoping that would carry over into college and obviously it did.”
McCall, a business major, is third in college football in QB Rating (passing efficiency) behind only Alabama’s Mac Jones and BYU’s Zach Wilson, and is fifth in total QBR behind Jones, Florida’s Kyle Trask, Clemson’s Trevor Lawrence and Georgia’s Stetson Bennett.
His two turnovers this season – an interception and fumble – came in the first half against Arkansas State and contributed to the Chants falling behind 7-0 and 14-7. But he showed his resiliency by completing 20 of 29 passes for 322 yards and four touchdowns and rushing for 44 yards on 17 carries in the game to lead CCU to a big 52-23 win.
“He was tough,” Chadwell said. “It was good to see, because the first two weeks everything was rosy for him. He was great, he’s not been touched, and [against Arkansas State] he was smacked around a little bit, and he responded. His toughness I think really showed through.”
The Chants followed that win up with a 30-27 win Wednesday over No. 21 Louisiana – with McCall leading a late game-winning scoring drive – to earn the program’s first FBS national ranking at No. 24 in the Amway Coaches Poll and No. 25 in the AP Top 25 Poll.
McCall is leading CCU to success while endearing himself to his teammates and coaches, just as he did at Porter Ridge.
“He’s just one of those players you grow close to and care about,” Castator said. “He’s a passionate young man. He cares intensely about not just being a great football player, he cares intensely about his teammates, he cares intensely about those that are close to him in his life. He’s got a big heart and he’ll give everything he can for those that he cares about, and you’re seeing that play out with his team now at Coastal.”
Saturday’s game
What: Georgia Southern (3-1, 1-1 Sun Belt Conference) at No. 24/25 Coastal Carolina (4-0, 2-0)
When: Noon
Where: Brooks Stadium, Conway
TV: ESPNews
Radio: WRNN 99.5 FM
Online: www.goccusports.com
This story was originally published October 20, 2020 at 11:16 AM with the headline "Who is Grayson McCall? CCU’s young QB has been a football fanatic nearly since birth."
