Michael Vick Reacts to Shocking Loss on Video as NSU Loses in Surprising Way to NC Central

It seemed as if Norfolk State was going to get its first MEAC win of the season under head coach Michael Vick on Saturday.

Until it didn't.

The Spartans were well on their way to victory when they recovered a North Carolina Central fumble with the lead and 1:36 left to play, but quarterback David Bailey then lost a fumble as the team ran plays instead of kneeling. NC Central made Vick's team pay with a go-ahead touchdown pass with 27 seconds left before Marco Peery missed a 37-yard field goal attempt that would have won it on the final possession.

"I'm sorry, man," Vick told his team in a video he posted and then deleted after the stunning loss (h/t Antonio Morales of The Athletic). "We've got to help y'all just as much as we ask y'all to help us. There (isn't) too much else to say, fellas. We've got to soak this one in. Great effort. Played your asses off. … I thought it was over, man. Took my headset off. Thought it was over. We were supposed to be in victory (formation)."

While kneeldowns wouldn't have run the entire clock out since NC Central had one timeout remaining, it would have used all but the final seconds.

For his part, Vick told reporters he wanted his team to kneel in that situation.

"I put my headset down, I called victory formation and all we had to do was take a knee and kneel the clock out," Vick said (h/t Morales). "That's just situational football. I don't know what happened in regard to that. I looked up and we were running the ball, then I saw he fumbled. My final instructions were victory formation. That's when you kneel it out. That's when you have zero timeouts left and they had, I think, zero timeouts and the game was over, practically."

It was the type of loss that can undercut the momentum the program has built at times this season.

The 2025 campaign was Vick's first as head coach, and the Spartans went 1-11 without a conference win.

However, they went 4-3 in nonconference play this season and entered MEAC play looking much improved in Vick's second season. While they lost their first two conference games, one of them was by just three points to Delaware State.

Saturday was a chance to get that elusive conference win, but it slipped away in shocking fashion at the end.

Next up is an opportunity against Morgan State, which is also winless in the league, but Saturday's loss will surely take some time to get over.