Michael Vick 2025 NFF COLLEGE FOOTBALL HALL OF FAME CLASS

Michael Vick

By Matt Fortuna

All these years later, and Michael Vick still gets emotional thinking about it. He was a young quarterback overwhelmed by his college playbook. He was, he admits, struggling a lot. Then one day Rickey Bustle, Virginia Tech's offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach, told Vick to meet him at the 50-yard line of Lane Stadium. Just the two of them. Was Vick in trouble? Hardly.

"He made me get on one knee, he made me look him in the eye, and he made me promise that I wouldn't quit, that I wouldn't give up," Vick said. "And I just kept going until I learned. My college football life was amazing."

That conversation set the course for what ended up being an NFF College Football Hall of Fame career. Vick becomes the sixth Virginia Tech player to make the Hall, and he joins his coach, Frank Beamer (Class of 2018), along with teammate Corey Moore (2023), as part of a trio that represents a defining era for Hokies football.

That experience in Blacksburg played no small role in leading Vick to where he is now: As head coach of Norfolk State.

"It was a lot. It was a major factor in terms of my decision-making," Vick said of getting into coaching. "I just knew if I could try to be half the coach that Coach Beamer was in terms of just captivating our minds and making us believe that we could go win and playing hard and doing things the right way; it's not an easy thing to do, but it can be done. I feel like I had great college coaches."

After a redshirt year in 1998, Vick burst on to the national scene the following season, leading the Hokies to an 11-0 regular-season record as he led the nation in pass efficiency (180.4) and finished third in the Heisman Trophy voting. That pass efficiency mark was a single-season school record, as was Vick's yards per completion (20.4) and yards per attempt (12.0).

Virginia Tech made it all the way to the national title game, before falling to Florida State. A 38-14 win over Boston College in the regular-season finale set up that trip to the Sugar Bowl, and it doubled as Vick's favorite on-field moment in college - even if it technically carried him off the field.

"My favorite on-the-field memory was being carried off the field by the student body after the Boston College game," Vick said. "I never would've thought in a million years after my struggles when I got there - I wouldn't even call it a struggle, it was just having to learn what to do. I just learned what to do. And so, to sum it all up with a national championship opportunity, to go to that game, beating Boston College and being carried off the field, that was very special."

Vick's 2000 season featured more of the same, leading to him becoming the NFL's No. 1 draft pick by the Atlanta Falcons. He exited Blacksburg with 3,074 passing yards and 20 passing touchdowns, to go with 1,202 rushing yards and 16 rushing touchdowns.

The Hokies went 22-2 with Vick as the starter, with the second of those two losses coming in a game against Miami that Vick had to leave early because of an ankle injury. They closed out Vick's career with a Gator Bowl win over Clemson, with the quarterback winning game MVP honors. Virginia Tech finished No. 6 in the AP poll, after a No. 2 finish the previous season. Along the way, the southpaw changed the dynamic of the quarterback position.

"I take a lot of pride in it, because I put in the work, I worked hard," Vick said of his influence on the modern quarterback position. "I had some really good coaches who poured into me and believed in me, and I always had the support of my family as well. So, all those things combined to make me a more complete player on and off the field."

Despite growing up less than five hours away from campus in Newport News, Vick hardly had Virginia Tech on his radar in the early stages of his recruitment. He liked the idea of playing at Clemson or Georgia Tech, until Hokies recruiting coordinator Jim Cavanaugh initiated his recruitment.

Once Vick met Beamer, he was sold.

Now, Vick takes pride in being on the other side of the same type of conversations he once had with Bustle and his own college coaches back in his playing days. As it turns out, "Coach Vick" has a nice ring to it.

"It's the cool part about my job: I get to keep encouraging them when they feel like they can't do it," Vick said. "And when I know they've got the potential to do it, that's what it comes down to, the trust. And once you tell them, and they see it happening, you gain more trust. So that's what it's all about for me, is gaining the trust of the players."