Down 17 Twice, Delaware State Stuns Vick's Norfolk State at the Linc

The game was built as a homecoming: DeSean Jackson and Michael Vick, former Eagles teammates, coaching against each other at Lincoln Financial Field in the HBCU Battle of the Legends, in front of a paid crowd of 32,567. For more than 52 minutes, it was Vick's afternoon. Then Delaware State scored the final 20 points, and freshman Matteo Bracalenti split the uprights from 35 yards as time expired to give the Hornets a 36–33 win that nobody in the building saw coming an hour earlier.

It started as badly as a game can start. Norfolk State scored on three of its first four possessions, according to Norfolk State Athletics' game recap: a 32-yard Marco Peery field goal, a touchdown twelve seconds later after Delaware State fumbled the ensuing kickoff, and Da'Jean Golmond's 11-yard touchdown pass to Kam'Ryn Thomas for a 17–0 lead in the second quarter.

Delaware State's first answer came in the final 2:09 of the half. Marqui Adams hit Jaylin Terzado for a 33-yard touchdown on fourth-and-3, Norfolk State fumbled the following kickoff, and Patrick Fisher-Butler's 35-yard field goal with 49 seconds left sent the Hornets into the locker room down just 17–10.

The third quarter somehow got worse. Golmond threw a 23-yard touchdown to Jason Wonodi. Adams answered with a 40-yard touchdown to Terrence Rone — only for the conversion snap to go wrong and Nasir Bashir to return the ball 88 yards the other way for two Norfolk State points, the program's first defensive conversion since 2017. When Ravon Moore scored from three yards out, the Spartans led 33–16 with 5:24 left in the third quarter, despite rushing for just 22 yards all afternoon.

Then the game flipped for good. Fisher-Butler's 23-yard field goal started the run. Adams found Jaron Kelley from five yards out. Phillip Dunnam intercepted Golmond, and six plays later Adams hit Kyree Benton for a 20-yard touchdown that tied the game at 33 with 7:47 remaining — the fourth Adams touchdown pass of the day, each one to a different receiver, Sports Illustrated noted in its HBCU Week 9 roundup.

Norfolk State's last chance died with 57 seconds left: Elyjah Mitchell caught a short pass, Dunnam forced the fumble, and Ryan Brown recovered at the Spartan 15, The Capital Sports Report detailed. Delaware State drained the clock, and Bracalenti — a freshman kicking in an NFL stadium — ended it from 35 yards as the clock hit zero.

The quarterback who drove the comeback has a story of his own. Adams is a Philadelphia native who had been a Delaware State starter earlier in his career, missed the 2025 season recovering from an ACL tear, and had appeared only off the bench this fall before getting his first start of the season in his hometown, Delaware Online reported. He finished 17-of-23 for 243 yards and four touchdowns without an interception, and led the Hornets in rushing with 69 yards. "It truly felt like a blessing," Adams said, per Delaware Online, "coming back to my hometown, doing what I love to do."

On the other sideline, Vick was left with the strangest stat line of his young coaching career: his team led from the game's first minutes until the final play and lost. "Last year we didn't have a lead," Vick said afterward, in quotes published by Norfolk State Athletics. "This year we had the lead the entire game, all the way into the last play. That's what I take away from it." Jackson, whose team has now beaten Vick's at the Linc in consecutive seasons, kept it simpler: "When we're down, for some reason we fight."

The Sports Desk's read: the stake here is the MEAC race, and it swung hard in one afternoon. Delaware State is 5–4 and 1–1 in the league, alive because a defense that forced four turnovers kept bending a game its offense nearly gave away — the Hornets converted one third down in twelve tries and still scored 36. Norfolk State falls to 4–5 and 0–2 with three conference games left, and a team that can lead for 52 minutes and rush for 22 yards has a finishing problem that no halftime lead will fix. Adams, meanwhile, just made himself the hardest quarterback in the MEAC to bench.