North Carolina Central pulled off one of the wildest finishes of the HBCU season Saturday, rallying to beat Michael Vick’s Norfolk State Spartans 29-28 after Norfolk State fumbled away a game it only needed to kneel out, as first reported by ClutchPoints.
Here’s how it went down. A Jalyn Daniels touchdown to open the fourth quarter put NSU up 28-17. The Eagles answered with a seven-play, 75-yard drive capped by a 7-yard keeper from Jones to make it 28-23. Then Gino Addison, who ran for a game-high 174 yards on 18 carries, coughed it up late and Norfolk State recovered.
That should have been the ballgame. NCCU had no timeouts left. Instead, NSU ran a play, quarterback Deljay Bailey picked up 13 yards and fumbled it right back. Jones found Wall for a 26-yard touchdown with 27 seconds left, and Marco Peery’s 37-yard field goal try for the Spartans missed with 4 seconds on the clock.
The IAHHM Take
Vick didn’t dodge it. After the game he said he put his headset down and called victory formation. “All we had to do was just take a knee and nail the clock out,” Vick said, adding that he didn’t know why the play was run, per ClutchPoints.
That’s a tough look for a first-year program still hunting its first MEAC win, especially one week after losing to DeSean Jackson’s Delaware State in the Battle of the Legends. Whatever happened on that headset, the communication has to get fixed.
For the Bull City, though? This is the kind of win that defines a season. NC Central stays in the hunt for the MEAC title and the Celebration Bowl, with South Carolina State up next. That’s a team the Eagles haven’t beaten since Chennis Berry took over the Bulldogs in 2024. Biggest game of the year in Durham.
Is this the win that gets NCCU to Atlanta? Let us know.
More Carolina football: Carolina Game Day: Homecoming in Winston-Salem, the Commemorative Classic and Duke at NC State.
Source: ClutchPoints
