NORFOLK — Norfolk State head coach Michael Vick doesn’t sound like a man who doubts his team. He sounds like a man searching for answers.
“Look, I’ll just say this, man — this hasn’t been the easiest day to walk around,” he said Wednesday during NSU’s weekly press conference. “We’re working through the kinks of everything right now. Better days ahead for us.”
They’ll have to be.
After losing 41-34 to rival Hampton on Saturday in the Battle of the Bay, the Spartans sit at 1-5. They’ve blown two-score leads in back-to-back weeks and are dead last in the nation in penalties. Across six games, they’ve racked up nearly 540 yards in flags.
But it’s not just penalties, because they’re coughing the ball up too. The Spartans’ 10 turnovers this season are tied for the second most in the country. Two of them came in back-to-back series against HU, when fumbles by running backs X’Zavion Evans and Jaylen Laudermilk flipped a 21-10 lead into a 27-21 deficit in the span of a few minutes. Hampton scored 10 points off those miscues and 17 unanswered overall in the second quarter — the kind of collapse that’s become all too familiar for the Spartans.
Hampton U rallies to beat Norfolk State in 60th Battle of the Bay
For a team that’s shown flashes of brilliance — and for a coach who’s lived the highest highs the sport can offer — that’s a maddening combination.
Vick has been where few ever go. He’s felt the electricity of playoff football, the chaos of comeback wins and the rush of an offense firing on all cylinders. But this is different. This is teaching — and, right now, teaching patience.
“It’s fixable, for sure,” Vick said, when asked about the penalties. “We’ve watched it as a team — they’re all fixable. But you can’t keep giving up 15 yards of grass because you lost your position. We have to play with sound technique and discipline. Then those flags will go away.”
But so far, they haven’t.
Norfolk State’s offense has shown the ceiling Vick’s been searching for. There have been several moments where it feels like everything’s finally clicking. Yet just when it looks like the breakthrough is coming, the same issues — the late hits, the offsides, the missed assignments — send them right back where they started.
Vick’s frustration was clear. Most of the mistakes aren’t effort-based, and that’s what makes them sting more.
“You put all this work in as an offense to go forward,” he said. “Then you get a flag, and you go backwards. We’re working in the wrong direction.”
At this point, belief isn’t the problem. It’s execution.
When Vick was asked if he wanted to win more than his players, he didn’t hesitate — he said he knows they want to win. The effort is there. But effort doesn’t erase 17 penalties. It doesn’t protect two-touchdown leads.
This team isn’t quitting — but it is beating itself.
For fans, that’s a hard pill to swallow. Many believed that bringing in a name like Vick would bring immediate results, or at least visible progress. Some are still patient, understanding that building a winning program takes time. Others see the same mistakes week after week and wonder how much longer that process will take.
Vick gets it — he just can’t cater to it.
“It’s hard to win,” he said. “People don’t really understand how hard football is — the dedication and commitment it takes. Just leave it up to us to fix it. Don’t get frustrated. Come to the games and wait for better days.”
Those better days, the Spartans believe, are still coming. They insist they’re better than their record shows, and that once the self-inflicted wounds stop, the rest will fall into place.
And maybe they’re right. The talent is there — the explosive plays, the fire, the energy. But the mistakes have become a recurring nightmare.
Vick said the goal isn’t to become more conservative after these collapses, but rather to learn how to hold leads, how to finish and how to play clean football when it matters most.
“It’s great for our players to go through this,” he said. “Next time we have a lead, maybe they’ll think about it a little differently. It’s part of their football life — learning how to finish.”
That’s the lesson of the past two weeks: Norfolk State’s problem isn’t getting ahead. It’s staying ahead.
The Spartans’ story isn’t written yet, as Vick has emphasized several times. Conference play is around the corner, and the slate resets with it. Every goal — including competing for the MEAC title — is technically still in front of them. But that window closes fast if they can’t stop undoing their own progress.
Because sooner or later, “fixable” stops meaning “temporary.”
Right now, Norfolk State looks like a team in the middle of that choice — between what they believe they can be, and what the record says they are.
And for a coach who once made the impossible look easy, this might be Mike Vick’s hardest lesson yet: in football, belief only gets you so far. Eventually, you have to stop running backward.
