WINSTON-SALEM, NC —Michael Vick and Tory Woodbury worked together at Norfolk State last season. Now Woodbury returns with Winston-Salem State to face his longtime friend in his first game as a head coach.
Michael Vick and Tory Woodbury have shared plenty of football experiences over the past 25 years. On Saturday, the longtime friends will add perhaps their most unusual chapter when Winston-Salem State travels to Norfolk State.
A year ago, Woodbury was on Vick’s Norfolk State coaching staff as assistant head coach and special teams coordinator. Now he will make his head coaching debut at his alma mater against the man he worked alongside last fall.
Neither program enters 2026 satisfied with what happened a year ago.
Norfolk State finished Vick’s first season as a head coach with a 1-11 record. Winston-Salem State finished 4-6 and 2-5 in CIAA play before hiring Woodbury in December to lead the program he once quarterbacked.
That gives Saturday’s 6 p.m. season opener at Dick Price Stadium several layers beyond the usual Division II-versus-FCS HBCU matchup.
For Woodbury, it is personal without being contentious.
“We talk all the time in the offseason, mostly about golf and just reminiscing,” Woodbury said. “He’s a good friend of mine.”
A long-standing bond
Their relationship dates back to 2001. Vick was the No. 1 overall selection in the NFL Draft that year, while Woodbury entered the professional ranks as a free agent. Woodbury said the two trained together in New Orleans before the draft and were roommates during that period.
Their paths eventually crossed again in coaching when Woodbury joined Vick’s first Norfolk State staff. Now they are on opposite sidelines.
“We haven’t talked much leading up to this game,” Woodbury said. “I’m sure we won’t talk this week. We will talk probably pregame because we’re still friends, but we both got the same goal that we want to get out here and get this victory.”
Vick sees it much the same way.
“To be able to go head-to-head against him in Week One, it’s something that we never thought we would be doing,” Michael Vick said. “It was never truly discussed between me and him. It just kind of happened organically.”
Vick added that he expects a physical game and wished Woodbury success — with one temporary exception.
“Wish him luck in every game except for this week,” Vick said.
Tory Woodbury brought experience to Michael Vick’s first staff
There was another dynamic to their partnership last season.
While Vick was navigating his first year as a coach at any level, Tory Woodbury was already a veteran assistant with nearly two decades of coaching experience.
Woodbury’s résumé included NFL stops with the Los Angeles Rams and Jacksonville Jaguars along with college coaching experience at Howard, Delaware State, Johnson C. Smith and other programs before he arrived at Norfolk State.
Woodbury joked this week that the expected teacher-student dynamic was occasionally reversed.
“Being a first-year coach and I was going on year 20 last year, so it was kind of the opposite way,” Woodbury said. “I was kind of sharing a little info with him.”
But Woodbury was also watching Vick. One area in particular stood out as he prepared for the possibility of eventually becoming a head coach himself.
“I saw kind of how Coach Vick handled the media,” Woodbury said. “He’s very great with media. That’s something I kind of leaned on and just watched how he kind of handled himself with the media. He’s a natural at that, being on TV and things and such.”
Woodbury said the relationship ultimately became an exchange of ideas as both learned the responsibilities associated with their new roles.
Now Woodbury gets to put those observations into practice at Winston-Salem State.
Both coaches trying to establish a new identity
Vick readily admits his first season taught him how much he still had to learn.
Norfolk State’s 1-11 record included missed opportunities that Vick believes were compounded by turnovers, penalties and breakdowns in situational football.
“What stung so much about last year [were] the opportunities that we had, the opportunities that we blew in terms of putting ourselves in position to win,” Vick said.
He said the Spartans spent the offseason emphasizing sharper focus and greater attention to detail.
“At the end of the day, on paper, it was 1-11,” Vick said. “And we’re thriving off that.”
Vick also acknowledged that he has changed.
“You gotta pay attention to detail on every level,” he said. “I didn’t have the same poise last year that I have now. I didn’t have the same patience for teaching.”
He said he understands special teams and defense more deeply now instead of focusing primarily on the offense, his natural area of expertise.
Woodbury plans to use his knowledge
Woodbury is beginning that same head coaching learning curve, although he enters it with considerably more time as an assistant. He also carries inside knowledge of Norfolk State.
“I know their strengths, I know their weaknesses,” Woodbury said. “I would help out with the offense, so I kind of know what they run and defensively. We spent a lot of time together as a coaching staff, so you kind of learn their tendencies.”
Woodbury knows Vick and his staff will understand that advantage and adjust accordingly.
“They’re probably gonna try to break their tendencies,” Woodbury said. “But at the same time — you are who you are.”
Still, Woodbury does not want Winston-Salem State consumed with Norfolk State.
His message has centered on discipline, ball security and a “don’t flinch” mentality.
“It’s really not about our opponent,” Woodbury said. “This week, it just happens to be Norfolk is in the way.”
That opponent just happens to be led by a long-time friend and former colleague.
Saturday night, the conversations about golf and old times will have to wait. For sixty minutes, Michael Vick and Tory Woodbury will be trying to start new chapters at Norfolk State and Winston-Salem State — at each other’s expense.