As NC State’s Grayson McCall absorbs another violent hit, a reminder of football’s cost, risk

In any given televised football game on any given Saturday or Sunday, violent replays are a part of the spectacle and maybe the allure. The devastating sack of a quarterback. A linebacker who meets a running back or receiver at full speed, and creates a turnover. It has long been part of the culture and draw of the sport: the big hits and the ogling of those big hits.

The oohs and the aahs and the “hope-he’s-OKs,” because that looked rough.

“But he’s up,” so goes the usual relief. “Back in the huddle, somehow.”

Good. Onto the next play.

There was no next play on Saturday for N.C. State quarterback Grayson McCall. And there was no replay during the broadcast on The CW. That choice alone should tell you how bad it was and how concerning; how downright scary — so much so that TV, which often knows no limit to the football violence it’s willing to share and reshare, found this moment too much to show again.

Seeing it live was enough. And it would have been enough to see it live had it concerned any player, at any school, but that it was McCall made the moment especially alarming, given his history of football-related head trauma. The blows to the head that McCall sustained Saturday against Wake Forest — on a legal, within-the-rules play —looked a lot like what he experienced almost a year ago, on his final play of the 2023 season.

The immediate reaction, at least, was identical: teammates waving for medical personnel to rush onto the field, their concern evident in their urgency. The CW made the correct call Saturday in not showing the play again, with broadcaster Thom Brennaman only alluding to “hits ... to the head area” that McCall suffered.

For anyone watching, though, everything spoke for itself: that McCall’s helmet went flying after several Wake Forest defensive players converged upon him after he scrambled up the middle; that he immediately fell to his side, motionless; that his teammates instantly called for medical help; that a hush fell over the crowd at Carter-Finley Stadium.

The collision dislodged the ball, too, and the Demon Deacons returned the fumble about 80 yards, close to the Wolfpack goal line. It was a significant play. But, really: Who could care about that, with McCall still on the ground? Who could care about football, with his parents already out of the stands and on the field, watching medical personnel load their son onto a stretcher and then onto the back of the cart that carried him away?

It would have been a devastating scene for anybody, but especially for McCall, who was transported by ambulance to the hospital. It was devastating especially because everything about Saturday — right down to the “I think I’ll be OK” gesture he (thankfully) provided while he was carted off — looked so much like what he went through last Oct. 21 during a game at Arkansas State.

McCall then was the quarterback at Coastal Carolina, a small-school, stats-accumulating marvel at that level. There wasn’t a pass he was afraid to attempt, or a scramble too daring, and with Coastal leading by a touchdown early in the fourth quarter at Arkansas State, he took off up the middle. He took off exactly as he took off at Carter-Finley on Saturday: with a hopeful burst, seeking a first down.

Then, like Saturday, the defense soon met him. Then, like Saturday, he sustained a violent blow.

Then, like Saturday, his teammates recognized the gravity of it all. They called for help.

Then, like Saturday, the trainers and other medical personnel rushed to the field.

Then, like Saturday, McCall left the field on a stretcher, on the back of a cart.

McCall didn’t play another down after that hit last season. It’s fair to question whether he should’ve played at all this season, after that blow last October and the reality that it kept him from playing in another game. Back in July, during the ACC’s annual preseason kickoff event, McCall acknowledged that there was “so much going through my head about what the future looked like and what my plans were” after that season-ending hit at Arkansas State.

Was he worried about taking another severe hit?

Did he think about the potential consequences of such a thing? That his long-term health could be at risk? Did he think about the potential cost of a game, he said then, that had “changed my family’s life?” As to how much he thought of the risks, the answer came quickly:

“I don’t, man,” McCall said then, months before the start of this season. “I think if I have that mindset, it will just hinder me. I think I’ve got to go out there and just let it rip.

“Play fast and prepare myself and put myself in the best possible position to stay healthy.”

There wasn’t anything wrong with the answer. It’s understandable, in a sense, for a player with lofty football dreams; one who before this season was likely hanging onto a goal of playing professionally, or at least of playing well at a higher level of college football. But still, it makes you wonder: If McCall really wasn’t thinking of football’s potential long-term consequences, then who around him was?

His family had to be concerned with such things. His loved ones. At N.C. State, meanwhile, McCall was welcomed as an incoming transfer who could make a difference. He was welcomed as a missing piece and, indeed, he played on Saturday the way he way he wanted to play: fast.

He played fast, in pursuit of a first down. He played fast, in his first game back after another undisclosed injury, one he suffered earlier this season during a Wolfpack victory against Louisiana Tech on Sept. 14. He played fast, trying to give the Wolfpack its best chance to win. He played in a way to be admired, on the one hand.

On the other, it was fair to wonder whether he should’ve been playing at all.