Michael Vick called for victory formation — but then he watched as everything quickly unraveled for Norfolk State.

The former NFL quarterback — and current Norfolk State head coach — even took off his headset, with the Spartans up by five and only 1:36 remaining after safety Josiah Davis recovered a North Carolina Central fumble.

Since the Eagles only had one timeout remaining, Norfolk State faced a scenario where it could run out most of the clock, too.

But then the Spartans ignored Vick, quarterback Deljay Bailey ran left with the ball before fumbling and Norfolk State ended up falling to North Carolina Central 29-28 following a brutal collapse that left the 46-year-old confused.

“I don’t know what happened at the end of the game,” Vick told reporters postgame, according to ProFootballTalk. “I put my headset down. I called victory formation. All we had to do was take a knee, kneel the clock out. That’s just situational football. I don’t know what happened in regards to that. I looked up and we was running the ball, and then I seen the fumble. 

“But my final instructions was victory formation. That’s when you kneel it out. And they had, I think, zero timeouts left and the game was over practically.”

Vick, according to The Athletic, didn’t know why Norfolk State ran that play or even what the play call was.

Following Bailey’s fumble, North Carolina Central took over at the Norfolk State 37-yard line and scored one minute later, with Joshua Jones’ 26-yard pass to Mehki Wall capping the drive and giving the Eagles a 29-28 lead when the two-point conversion attempt failed.

The Spartans still had a chance on their final drive, as an unsportsmanlike penalty and an 18-yard pass from Bailey gave them the ball on the North Carolina Central 19-yard line, but Marco Peery missed a 37-yard field goal.

“People will look at that, and that’ll go on as a teaching tape for a lot of teams across the country for years to come,” Vick told reporters, according to The Athletic. “I hate it had to be us. But I called victory formation. I called victory formation, just letting everybody know that. I called victory.”

The loss dropped Norfolk State to 4-6 on the season and 0-3 in the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference during the 2026 campaign, which is Vick’s second with the program after a 1-11 season in 2025.