Mike Vick, Norfolk State lose after his order was ignored

Like a growing number of former NFL players, Mike Vick has become a college football coach. Unlike many college football coaches, a direct order from Vick wasn’t followed on Saturday.It turned a likely win into a loss.With 1:34 to play during Saturday’s game between Vick’s Norfolk State and North Carolina Central, Norfolk State led, 28-23. Norfolk State had the ball, facing second and five from the 50. North Carolina Central had no timeouts remaining.While a pair of knees wouldn’t have fully exhausted the remaining time, Vick told the offense to take a knee in victory formation. Two straight kneel-downs would have resulted in a punt with less than 15 seconds to play.Instead, Norfolk State lined up in shotgun formation, the quarterback ran to the left, a defender hit him, and the quarterback fumbled. North Carolina Central recovered at the Norfolk State 37. Five plays later, North Carolina scored a touchdown, on a 26-yard touchdown pass, making the score 29-28. (The two-point conversion attempt failed.)Twenty-seven seconds remained. Norfolk State drove in position to attempt a game-winning field goal. The 37-yard try missed wide left.“I don’t know what happened at the end of the game,” Vick told reporters after a loss that dropped Norfolk State to 4-6 on the season. “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.”“Well, I put my headset down, and I took my headset off because all we had to do was just run it three times, or two times, or kneel it out. That’s called victory. I don’t know what happened. A run play was called. I looked up, I seen us running the ball. I don’t know what happened. I really don’t. I don’t know what the play call was. I don’t know why we even ran that play. “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. I hate it had to be us. But I called victory formation. Just letting everybody know that. I called victory.”While the strategy wouldn’t have completely exhausted the clock, it was the right move. And, even if it wasn’t, the coach gave the order. The order wasn’t followed.So what happened? Vick said he had taken off his headset and then later realized that a run play had been called. The fact that the offense went straight into shotgun formation suggests that it wasn’t the players going rogue. Apparently, offensive coordinator Brian Sheppard decided to ignore Vick’s directive.Indeed, a somewhat chaotic postgame video (posted by Vick on Twitter) includes Vick telling his players “it was supposed to have been victory.”The video of the moments before the play in question shows the offense gathered at the numbers near the Norfolk State bench, speaking to a group of coaches who were still wearing headsets. The coach without a headset (who appears to be Vick) walked to the sideline before turning around and returning to the meeting.It’s clear that the coaches and players were having a discussion. From Vick’s perspective, there was nothing to discuss.And while Vick claims his instruction was ignored, he seemed to be a little too nonchalant at a time when he should have realized that something more detailed than telling the quarterback to line up under center, receive the snap, and take a knee was being planned.If Vick believes Sheppard or other coaches overruled the head coach, Vick should be issuing pink slips immediately. It’s possible, though, that Vick himself bears the bulk of the blame for not noticing that something other than the implementation of victory formation was coming.