For college QBs like Grayson McCall, there is no magic concussions number — but hanging it up can bring peace

Exactly a year ago, JT Daniels took a hit that ended his college football career.

Daniels, the starting Rice quarterback, couldn’t see straight after Southern Methodist linebacker Ahmad Walker took him to the ground in the second quarter. A wobbly Daniels stayed in the game, however, and even threw a touchdown pass two plays later that he had zero memory of doing. His head coach said after the game Daniels admitted to him he didn’t remember the play or the score. 

Daniels was assessed with concussion-like symptoms at halftime and didn’t return to what would be his last college game in a winding journey that went from USC to Georgia to West Virginia before finally finishing at Rice. At the time, Daniels was the conference’s passing leader and a former five-star recruit, but he couldn’t shake the balance and ocular issues that came with the hit against SMU. 

“I couldn’t drive for two, three months,” Daniels told CBS Sports. “I didn’t know if I’d be able to see straight again. When you experience that, it makes it pretty difficult to say I want to go out and do that again.”

Daniels, a sixth-year senior, medically retired following his doctor’s advice in the aftermath of that concussion against SMU on Nov. 4, 2023, his fourth during his career, a month later in Dec. 2023. He was a precursor to what came last week when North Carolina State quarterback Grayson McCall and Michigan quarterback Jack Tuttle both medically retired due to concussions. When told of the news last week, Daniels said, “Grayson McCall retired? No shit, I did not know that.”

Two veteran quarterbacks retiring the same week is not a trend, but it does warrant closer examination of a hot-button topic that has drawn NFL headlines this season and could only get more complicated moving forward. 

Like Daniels, McCall and Tuttle were both college QBs who had started their careers elsewhere. McCall led a renaissance at Coastal Carolina, becoming a media darling as the Chanticleers dazzled in the Jamey Chadwell era. McCall led Coastal Carolina to a 11-1 year in 2020 and 11-2 in 2021, throwing for more than 5,000 yards and 53 touchdowns across the two seasons. McCall once said he “pissed teal,” during transfer portal rumors a few offseasons ago, a reference to Coastal’s school colors. 

As Daniels wrestled with his retirement decision, McCall entered the transfer portal and was a coveted veteran option. He landed at NC State and sparked preseason hopes the Wolfpack could compete for an ACC title. He took a devastating hit against Wake Forest on Oct. 5, though, and never played another college down. When discussing the situation with reporters last week, McCall said it was his sixth or seventh concussion of his career.

“Every doctor has their own opinion but once you get to the four to five range, anything after that really isn’t good,” McCall said. “What I’ve learned from this last one is that the more you continue to get them, the chances of full recovery decrease.”

What’s fascinating is that while concussion awareness has improved considerably in the last two decades, there is still little consensus on when specifically a player could or should walk away. 

Dr. Robert Cantu, co-founder and medical director of the Concussion Legacy Foundation and whose namesake adorns Emerson Health’s Cantu Concussion Center, has written three papers specifically on return to play and retirement decisions after concussions. And yet because concussions can be unique to individuals there’s no magic number that prompts immediate retirement recommendations. 

“The number is not crucial, but it is not insignificant,” Cantu told CBS Sports. 

Cantu, who also serves as medical director for the National Center for Catastrophic Sports Injury Research, said he’s treated multiple athletes that had 10 or more concussions that have been able to function without symptoms because the concussions weren’t severe and the athletes didn’t return to play too quickly. 

“We’ve been writing about this subject for a long time, but there is no unanimous agreement on when to retire that any organization has gotten behind,” Cantu said. “It’s left to the individual opinion of physicians who see people and are well-intended, but have varying degrees of experience.”

There are three key factors to consider, according to Cantu:

1. Number of concussions (this is the least important of the three)
2. How close together concussions are
3. Severity of concussions (how long symptoms last is a good barometer)

“If someone is at the stage of their career where each concussion seems to be lasting longer and longer before it clears, that’s another risk that you’d think about telling somebody to think about retiring,” Cantu said. 

Having that conversation isn’t easy for anyone involved. There is so much wrapped into playing high-level sports, especially one like football, that it can be challenging to walk away. 

Scott Anderson served as the University of Oklahoma’s head athletic trainer from 1996 to 2022. The Hall of Fame trainer has extensive experience as a member of the NCAA’s Concussion Advisory Group and director of the National Registry of Catastrophic Sports Injuries Research. He hopes there will eventually be data on how many players have specifically retired because of concussions, but says to this point it’s never been tracked statistically. 

While at Oklahoma, Anderson would be very direct in explaining the impacts of concussions, especially what could happen after experiencing multiple. After a player suffered a second concussion, Anderson would lay out what it meant and even foreshadowed what that conversation was going to look like if there was a third concussion. Anderson believes that after a third concussion, “it becomes predictable that you’re going to get more concussions.”

“It’s ultimately the player’s decision to discontinue play so you’re doing everything you can to educate them to make a decision in their best interest,” Anderson told CBS Sports. “We would take it so far as you tell us. Nobody wants to quit so in some cases they would make it clear I’m through playing but you can tell they don’t want to make the decision so we would make the decision for them at that point and take that burden off of them.”

A new factor in the decision-making process is the ability for college athletes to make substantial money off their name, image and likeness. Before July 1, 2021, the only path for athletes to legally make money was to make it to the professional ranks. With the monetary rewards possible, one can take the logical leap that athletes would play through injuries, including concussions, to be able to financially capitalize on their abilities. In the retirement debate following Miami Dolphins quarterback Tua Tagovailoa’s third concussion in two years in September, his $53.1 million average annual salary was referenced in the discussion. 

Now, college athletes have the ability to make the decisions like McCall and Tuttle made last week and have money in the bank as they exit the game. High-level impact quarterbacks can make seven-figures annually while even Power Four starter-caliber transfer quarterbacks can make $400,000-$800,000 per year, as CBS Sports has previously reported. 

That said, it is still far too early in the process to know the impact of NIL on retirement decisions and even anecdotally there are mixed opinions about it.

“If that’s the life you desire more than anything, I imagine you would push through something like that,” Daniels said. “There probably is some aspect of if I’ve already made what people are starting to make these days in college football, it probably makes the decision a bit easier.”

Anderson believes the inverse could be true. He says money never came up in any injury or concussion-related discussion he’s had with players, though he was well aware of their NFL aspirations. There are anecdotal allegations, according to Anderson, that NFL players purposefully don’t report concussions because of fear it’d lead to an extended absence and another player taking their spot on the field. When there are considerable financial implications at play there, as there have been at the NFL and are starting to happen at the college level, there are concerns it could impact a player’s health-related decision-making process. 

“If I quit, what about all this money I’m making? If I’m disqualified, what about this money I’m making?” Anderson said. “The money could make the decision more difficult as opposed to I’ve got enough. Who sits around and says I have enough money?”

Brian Davis, a leading NIL lawyer for Forward Counsel, has worked with numerous prominent college athletes during the NIL era including Tennessee quarterback Nico Iamaleava. His mantra to his clients is always the same: The sport should be the Plan B while the Plan A is getting your college education paid for you. “Don’t let football use you,” he tells them, “use football to catapult yourself to more opportunities.”

Still, Davis, who suffered concussions himself as an athlete, always tries to prepare his NIL clients for what could happen. 

“Football is a very violent sport and your career horizons, if you’re smart, you can’t look beyond this year,” Davis told CBS Sports. “Any plan needs to take into consideration a real possibility that this income-producing opportunity won’t exist 13 months from now. So what can you do to live inside your means, maximize your earning potential now and preserve this incredible blessing for the future so you as a student can graduate with no debt and maybe have the opportunity to start your own business or buy your first house that other 21-year olds don’t get.”

A year later, Daniels doesn’t regret his decision. Now an offensive analyst working with quarterbacks at West Georgia, he doesn’t suffer from any long-term concussion-related symptoms. 

Daniels’ NFL dreams didn’t materialize as he hoped, but when he considered the risks associated with continuing to play football, he knew he had to walk away. He suffered memory loss from a severe concussion he suffered against Utah in 2018. Playing football wasn’t worth risking long-term mental repercussions from another impactful hit. 

“Is it ideal? No, it’s not the ideal reality,” Daniels said. “But I didn’t have to sit there and question ‘Is this worth trying to push through?’”

McCall reached the same conclusion.

“At the end of the day, I want to have a full life,” McCall said. “I want to get married and have kids one day. I want to be a football coach. I want to be a great dad one day. Without a healthy brain none of those things are possible. I love the game so much but it’s come down to things bigger than that.”

McCall would like to get into coaching and is already getting a taste of it since retirement, sitting in on coaches meetings and working with his replacement CJ Bailey. Tuttle, the seventh-year senior who retired after his fifth concussion, has also said he’d like to go into coaching.

Daniels, now on the other side of that decision, is using his experience to help his young quarterbacks. Best known as the early face of the reclassification trend and the transfer portal, he says concussions are now the question he gets asked about the second-most. 

“All of my guys will always be informed how serious it is that if you’re feeling off, you have to let us know,” Daniels said. “It’s never worth going back in and the potential repercussions of going in with a brain that’s susceptible can literally be life-altering.”