It was right there in big, bold, italicized letters at the bottom of Grayson McCall’s transfer announcement:
“I WILL PLAY IN THE BOWL GAME AND FINISH WHAT I STARTED.”
Somehow, the message still wasn’t received by all. And by ‘all’ we mean bettors and oddsmakers.
With McCall’s Coastal Carolina program set to face East Carolina in the TicketSmarter Birmingham Bowl on Dec. 27, many saw the junior quarterback’s decision to transfer and immediately went to bet on the exhibition, probably thinking McCall wouldn’t play.
Half of the fun in the sports betting world is trying to get a jump on new information before the sportsbooks have a chance to react to it or take the game off the board.
Except there was no new edge here. Nothing changed except McCall’s status as a Chanticleer after the game. The line for the bowl game opened at Coastal Carolina as 7.5-point underdogs, but went for a pretty quick and strange joyride immediately after McCall’s announcement.
The line movement in the Coastal Carolina vs ECU game in the last hour has been crazy 😳
Coastal's QB Grayson McCall announced that he was transferring on Twitter.
Everyone missed the last sentence of his announcement that said, "I will be playing in the bowl.." 😅 pic.twitter.com/s1tILsDeP8
— Action Network (@ActionNetworkHQ) December 12, 2022
Well, you don’t see that often! McCall tweeted his intention to enter the transfer portal at 2:49 p.m. ET when the line was CCU +10.5.
Not even three minutes later, Action Network tracked the line shifting to CCU +13.5 where it stayed for about 10 minutes before falling back down to CCU +10.5—and then down another point to CCU +9.5.
After all that, oddsmaker apparently believe transferring will give McCall and the Chanticleers more of an edge against ECU than if he were coming back for his senior year.
— Gray (@McCall_Grayson) December 12, 2022
McCall has been a star for CCU for three years now, passing for 7,994 yards, 77 touchdowns and eight interceptions to go with another 1,042 yards and 16 scores on the ground.
His presence against East Carolina can’t be understated.
Which is exactly why many went rushing to bet on the Pirates before realizing McCall still had one more game to play.
