Michael Vick Reverses Last Year’s Script, Norfolk State Routs Winston-Salem State 56-0

Michael Vick got his first win at Norfolk State in dominating fashion, and it came against Tory Woodbury, the first-year Winston-Salem State coach who spent 2025 as Vick’s assistant head coach. Junior college transfer Deljay Bailey, who won Norfolk State’s quarterback competition in a battle Vick said went to the wire, set the tone on the opening series, finding Elyjah Mitchell across the goal line to cap a seven-play, 69-yard march for a 7-0 lead with 8:52 left in the first.

Four minutes of game clock later, Bailey did it himself, a 20-yard keeper for a 14-0 lead with 1:10 to play in the quarter. Norfolk State never trailed and never punted with the ball inside the Winston-Salem half all night, and by the time it was over, the Spartans had scored on all eight of their red-zone trips in a 56-0 rout in front of 15,572 at William “Dick” Price Stadium.

The defense delivered the game’s turning point on the next possession. Winston-Salem’s lone real threat of the half reached the Norfolk State 28 before Jordan Saunders stepped in front of a Kendall McKoy throw at the 15 and returned it 15 yards, and the Spartans took the takeaway 70 yards on 10 plays, finishing with a 10-yard Bailey-to-Mitchell strike for a 21-0 halftime edge. Bailey finished 13 of 20 for 119 yards and three touchdowns without an interception, and added 56 yards and a score on five carries in his Norfolk State debut. “Throughout summer camp, he showed that he had total control of the offense,” Vick said. “The coaches and everybody else have confidence in him. He has confidence in the players around him, and he just goes out and gets it done every day. He’s one of the hardest-working guys I’ve ever seen.”

Winston-Salem State opened the third quarter with an onside kick, but Norfolk State recovered at midfield and answered with a 10-play, 50-yard drive that Jalyn Daniels punched in from a yard out. Daniels led all rushers with 104 yards on 15 carries, including a 28-yard burst on the game’s first snap from scrimmage. The Spartans then put together the drive of the night, 12 plays, 85 yards and 6:40 off the clock, ending on a five-yard touchdown catch by Brevin Caldwell with 52 seconds left in the third to make it 35-0. From there, the defense simply took the ball away. BJ Blake sacked McKoy and knocked it loose, and Eugene Allen scooped it up and returned it 24 yards to the Winston-Salem 21; three plays later Kiron Benjamin scored from seven yards out.

On the very next Winston-Salem snap, McKoy fumbled again, and Princeton Toxey recovered at the 26, and two plays after that backup quarterback DaJean Golmond kept it in for the score, the two touchdowns coming 1:54 apart. Shamar Vick capped the night with a 34-yard run that set up his own one-yard touchdown with 2:07 remaining, giving Norfolk State five different rushing touchdown scorers, the most in a game since 2021; nine Spartans carried the ball, and nine caught a pass.

Winston-Salem State, playing its first game against Norfolk State since 2009, managed only 106 total yards on 46 plays and turned the ball over three times, going 1-for-11 on third down and never reaching the red zone. Norfolk State piled up 457 yards of total offense, ran for 306 yards on 43 carries, converted 7 of 9 third downs and held the ball for 37:10. It was Norfolk State’s first shutout since a 48-0 win over Morgan State on Nov. 2, 2019, its first 50-point game since a 63-26 win over Elizabeth City State on Sept. 18, 2021, and its first season-opening win since beating Virginia State 34-13 at home on Sept. 1, 2018, all three streaks snapped in the same night. The result flips last year’s script for Vick, who went 1-11 with an 0-5 mark in MEAC play in his debut season. “It feels good to come out and be able to get a victory in a big way,” Vick said. “We worked really hard for this. We’ve talked about it ever since January, when we first came back, just going 1-0 each and every day and going 1-0 each and every week. To come out here and put it all together in all three phases, man, I’m just so proud of our guys.” He credited his running backs for setting up the shootout finish. “The running backs took a lot of pressure off us,” Vick said. “Those guys work really hard. It’s not just about running the football, it’s also about protecting. When it’s time to run, they do a hell of a job.” Asked about the lopsided final, Vick said it was not the plan. “I didn’t envision us putting up 56 points,” he said. “We tried to run the ball late, but my guys felt a certain type of way. They wanted it, and you can’t call them off when they’re playing like that.”

Woodbury, in his own debut as Rams head coach, put the loss on his defense rather than his first-year quarterback. “I thought they ran the ball well and came out with a good game plan,” Woodbury said. “The quarterback played well, and they executed for Week 1. Coach Vick, his players and his coaching staff put together a great game plan. They executed it and came out on top.” Vick, who came into the night with no film on a Winston-Salem team playing under its own new coach, said his staff had to plan for multiple versions of the Rams. “We sat in here as a staff and tried to guesstimate what they were going to do,” Vick said. “If they came out and played one way, how were we going to counter it? If they played another way, what would we do? We went through all these scenarios to the point where we were tired. Eventually we said, we’re just going to go out, react, let them play and have fun.”

Rontravious Perry led Norfolk State with five tackles, Marco Peery was a perfect 8 of 8 on extra points and dropped three of his nine kickoffs for touchbacks, and Jason Wonodi returned three punts for 68 yards, including a 49-yarder. Norfolk State hits the road next, visiting cross-town neighbor Old Dominion on Saturday, Sept. 5, at 6 p.m. on ESPN+, with radio coverage on WNSB Hot 91.1. “We have to focus on ourselves and continue to go 1-0,” Bailey said. “That’s our mindset. The same way we approached this team is the same way we have to approach them, if not even more.”