NORFOLK — More than 25 years later, Damiano Pettaway still remembers Michael Vick competing in the Sugar Bowl, the 1999 season’s national championship game.
No matter that Vick and Virginia Tech, leading after three quarters, lost to Florida State. No matter that Seminoles receiver/return specialist Peter Warrick was named the game’s MVP.
Everyone in the Superdome and watching on television knew who the star was.
Vick “just put on a performance,” Pettaway said, “and I always liked him because he was from home. It just grew from there. I’m from Hampton, he’s from Newport News, and my love for him just grew.”
That’s why Thursday afternoon Pettaway donned his Vick No. 7 Philadelphia Eagles jersey and drove from his Chesapeake home to Norfolk State’s Dick Price Stadium and Vick’s maiden coaching voyage.
“He’s the reason I’m here,” Pettaway said, more than 90 minutes before NSU’s kickoff against Towson. “My favorite quarterback. … I got in line probably three hours early. Couldn’t miss it.”
Nor could scores of others rocking No. 7 Vick Eagles, Atlanta Falcons or Norfolk State jerseys. Even Cam Newton, on the “First Take” set with Vick and Stephen A. Smith on Thursday morning, broke out a No. 7.
But there’s a reason Norfolk State was searching for a coach last winter, and there’s a reason university officials took a flier on Vick, a Heisman Trophy finalist, NFL Pro Bowler and coaching rookie: Absent a winning season since 2011, the program desperately needed a jolt.
As Michael Vick’s Norfolk State debut approaches, ‘you can just feel the energy’
Vick has provided just that. But he’s no cure-all, witness a 27-7 setback in which undisciplined penalties and a meager rushing attack cost the Spartans dearly.
Indeed, so tepid was the showing that most of the announced crowd of 19,469 exited prior to the fourth quarter.
“We can’t beat ourselves like that,” Vick said. “… Do I feel like we should have beaten that team? Yes.”
Hmmm. Maybe.
Norfolk State was the faster team, especially on the perimeter. But its interior lines, especially on offense, were manhandled.
The Spartans committed nine penalties, one of which cost them a second-quarter touchdown. They yielded scoring passes of 33 and 36 yards — on a third-and-8 and third-and-20, no less. They wasted two of their three allotted timeouts in the second half.
Most troubling to Vick, they rushed for only 39 yards on 31 attempts, a failing most evident at game’s end, when the Spartans couldn’t score on four cracks inside Towson’s 3-yard line.
“I know that’s not the standard,” Vick said. “We can’t win like that.”
At first quarter’s end, the Spartans had more yards in penalties (33) than total offense (27). They had more punts (three) than first downs (zero).
Conversely, Towson, quarterbacked by true freshman Andrew Indorf, scored on its first three possessions to seize a 13-0 intermission lead, the biggest play Indorf’s 33-yard touchdown pass to Jaceon Doss on the game’s opening series.
In response, Vick wasted no time making XXL decisions.
He benched South Florida transfer quarterback Izzy Carter in the second quarter in favor of NSU veteran Otto Kuhns. Minutes later, rather than punt for a fifth time in as many possessions, he called for a fourth-and-1 Kuhns run from NSU’s 23-yard line.
Kuhns converted the fourth down, though the drive later stalled.
Norfolk State University head coach Michael Vick on the sidelines as Towson defeats Norfolk State University 27-7 at William “Dick” Price stadium in Norfolk, Virginia, on Aug. 28, 2025. (Billy Schuerman / The Virginian-Pilot)
“I don’t want to make a living going for it on fourth down, trust me,” Vick said, “or I won’t be here long. I’ll be calculated with that. There’s going to be a lot of situations where I have to make split-second decisions, and I feel like today was really good just from the experience standpoint, just to get out there and get a feel for the game.”
Kuhns threw for 219 yards, with completions of 28 yards to Kam’ryn Thomas and 21 yards to DreSean Kendrick, and how Vick manages Kuhn and Carter, at the position he knows so well, will be fascinating to observe as the season unfolds.
From spectacular to humbling to peculiar, Vick knows all about debuts.
As a Ferguson High freshman quarterback in 1994, he made his first start against undefeated Phoebus at midseason. He completed 2 of 11 passes for 20 yards, with an interception, in a 17-0 defeat. The Mariners managed a scant three first downs.
Fast forward to Vick’s redshirt freshman year — party like it’s 1999! — at Virginia Tech. In the Hokies’ season-opener, a 47-0 rout of James Madison at Lane Stadium, Vick rushed for touchdowns of 3, 7 and 54 yards, and completed four passes for another 110 yards.
In less than a half! Somersaulting into the end zone on his 7-yard scoring dash in the second quarter, he dinged an ankle and missed the remainder of the game, plus the next week’s contest against Alabama Birmingham.
Vick’s maiden NFL start, as an Atlanta Falcons rookie in 2001 against the visiting Dallas Cowboys, was just plain weird.
With QB1 Chris Chandler unavailable due to a rib injury, Vick threw an early 9-yard touchdown pass to Alge Crumpler, the first of his professional career. But subsequent struggles prompted coach Dan Reeves to rotate Vick and Doug Johnson virtually every play in the second half of Atlanta’s 20-13 victory. Vick completed 4 of 12 passes for 33 yards and lost a fumble.
Thursday most resembled his humbling high school premiere. But you know what?
The very next week, he completed 13 of 15 passes for 433 yards and four touchdowns in a 41-11 victory over Gloucester.
“Now I feel like I can move forward as a head coach,” Vick said late Thursday night. “I can teach, I can correct, and we’ll be a lot better next week (against Virginia State) for sure.”
David Teel: david.teel@virginiamedia.com
