Michael Vick could transfer to Virginia Tech if he wins at Norfolk State

According to a report in the Virginian-Pilot, Michael Vick became the latest NFL legend to sign on as a college football coach when Norfolk State hired him to lead its program.

And for most of us who don’t particularly care about Norfolk State football, that just means one thing: You better watch your back, Brent Pry!

Who is Brent Pry? He is the largely unremarkable coach at Virginia Tech who has gone 3-8, 7-6 and 6-6 in three seasons and is unlikely to be recognized in any grocery store or airplane terminal in America within 30 miles of Blacksburg.

This isn’t meant to be a knock on Pry, who made a name for himself as James Franklin’s defensive coordinator at Vanderbilt and Penn State and parlayed that into a $4.75 million-per-year contract. Good job if you can get it.

But let’s be honest. Vick is a star. A cultural icon, even, despite the wrongdoings in his past that he has worked hard to make amends for. And he’s particularly a star at Virginia Tech, the school he put on the map by leading the Hokies to the brink of a national title in 1999.

Do we really have to put two and two together here?

If Vick shows even a hint of competence as a head coach next year and Virginia Tech continues on its current mediocre path, athletics director Whit Babcock (or whoever replaces him) will have no choice. Vick is coming for the job and good luck being the guy to tell the Hokies’ fan base that the most important player in school history has a few more years to contribute.

That’s not how this stuff works anymore (see Sanders, Deion), and that’s probably a good thing.

Coaching expertise, development and experience are important in college football, but it has become a game of paid player acquisition and roster building through the transfer portal that requires a different skill set than the traditional model.

Will Vick know what he’s doing on the sidelines? Impossible to say. He never trained.

But ideas that were once laughed at are now mainstream thought in college football. And what does Virginia Tech have to lose anyway? Since Frank Beamer retired at the end of the 2015 season, the program’s record is 60-53. Its identity as a run-down little powerhouse in the shadow of the Blue Ridge Mountains has been replaced with complete irrelevance. As we’ve learned over the last decade, Beamer – and Vick – have made this job look a lot easier than it actually is.

It will therefore be exciting to follow this scenario over the next 12 months.

Virginia Tech has a large fan base that is yearning for a winner, if not a return to the Beamer era when they regularly competed for conference championships. Vick has the star power to revive interest in Virginia Tech, and don’t think for a second that other athletic directors and school presidents haven’t noticed how Sanders has changed Colorado’s national image — and not just as a football program.

For people of a certain age – okay, my age – Vick was something we had never seen in football before. We are now used to quarterbacks who can dominate not only with their passing but also with their speed. But when Vick emerged at Virginia Tech and later with the Atlanta Falcons as the first black quarterback drafted No. 1 overall, he was one of them. For many reasons, it is truly one of the milestones in the history of this sport.

The next phase of Vick’s life was no walk in the park. He spent 21 months in prison and faced significant financial difficulties and legal proceedings because of the air fighting ring to which he was a member. But Vick has since gotten his life back together and has been working on television for Fox Sports since his NFL career ended.

Vick’s candidacy as a college coach seemingly came out of nowhere, but in this day and age, it makes sense. As schools grapple with the new financial reality of paying players, many schools are thinking outside the box or more willing to take a chance on untested coaches that they won’t have to pay $8 million a year.

Norfolk State, which plays at the FCS level, just fired Dawson Odums after he went 15-31 in four seasons. You have nothing to lose here. And when Vick shows up on the sidelines next fall, coaching just a few miles from his birthplace, there will be chaos.

Maybe he’ll get a few players. Maybe he’ll win a few games. It’s unlikely Vick will ever say this publicly, but the next step from there is obvious.

Will it happen? Will Vick make the fairytale return in a year or two to rescue his alma mater from its long-standing misery?

That’s largely up to him. If he does his job well, that will happen. If you’re Brent Pry – the guy who has the job at Virginia Tech, in case you forgot – you’ll be notified. The countdown for your expected successor has begun.

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