DeSean Jackson and Michael Vick are walking parallel paths as they adjust to being head coaches in the MEAC

BALTIMORE — Michael Vick may have stumbled into a new motto Tuesday morning. The new Norfolk State football coach was asked about his eagerness to get to his first game as a head coach, which still is more than a month away.

“Don’t count the days. Make them count,” Vick said.

“I don’t know where that just came from.”

Call it the latest lesson in a time when new things are coming frequently to Vick, the former Eagles quarterback who was hired by Norfolk State, near his hometown, Newport News, Va., in December.

Tuesday was another new experience during the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference’s media day. Normally held at a hotel in Norfolk, Va., this year’s event was at the Baltimore Ravens’ M&T Bank Stadium. The six-school conference, comprised of historically Black colleges and universities, has more media attention than ever, thanks to Vick and fellow first-year coach DeSean Jackson, who took the job at Delaware State not long after Vick was hired at Norfolk.

The former Eagles are walking a parallel path as first-year head coaches, and they said they’re rooting for each other every week except the week of Oct. 30, when Delaware State hosts Norfolk State in a game at Lincoln Financial Field, where Jackson and Vick played together for five seasons.

“It’s a brotherhood that we have. He was one of the best quarterbacks I played with,” said Jackson, who caught 13 touchdown passes from Vick’s left arm. “The relationship that we have, regardless of us going at it, Norfolk State and Delaware State, that’s still my brother. But game week, it’s going to be heated. At the same time, it’s good, friendly competition. I’m praying for his success, and just as well he’s praying for my success.”

» READ MORE: Michael Vick talks coaching, wanting to be like Andy Reid, and getting career advice from Deion Sanders

Said Vick, whose Spartans are coming off a 4-8 season: “I’ll be rooting for him each and every week except for that one week, and that’s going to be really cool. For us to have this opportunity, you have to take it seriously. You’ve got to be committed. And that’s what we talked about.

“Coaching DeSean, helping DeSean, teaching DeSean, I feel like I’m ready. And in talking to him, I feel like he’s ready as well. Playing quarterback, you kind of see everything through a different lens. I think DeSean is going to see things through the same lens in due time.”

For now, both new coaches are relying a little bit on their pasts as they navigate their new world. Both said they talked with former coaches like Andy Reid to help guide them. Jackson credited Reid with helping him get the job at Delaware State.

“I love Andy Reid to death, man,” Jackson said. “He’s a great dude. Being able to have relationships with guys like that … I feel like in my eyes he’s top five all-time coaches to ever coach this game.

“I can’t overburden him as well, too, because he’s got a job. He just lost to our Eagles, and I know that was bitter for him, too, and I’m sure he’s trying to figure out how the heck to beat the Eagles now.”

Vick, who last played with the Steelers in 2015, said he finds himself daily reaching back into the memory bank to something Reid or Mike Tomlin, or Dan Reeves did or said.

“Andy’s just so encouraging,” Vick said. “He just believes that I’m going to be able to get it done, that I’m going to do well. As men, as father figures, you’re always going to tell your son, ‘You’re going to do great.’ … I’ve always had coaches who can see things in me that I couldn’t see, the same way I see things that they probably can’t see."

» READ MORE: The Jalen Hurts-Nick Sirianni relationship has gone from awkward to afterthought as Eagles begin camp

The past seven months have been filled with firsts for Vick, whose coaching experience before Norfolk State consisted of an offensive coordinator role in the Alliance of American Football and an internship with Reid in Kansas City, in which he worked with quarterbacks. Asked what he’s learned since being hired in December, Vick said: “I learned that I could do it. It’s always the fear of the unknown, the things that you don’t know, the things that you step into.”

Jackson, whose playing days ended with Baltimore in 2022, has what probably is a taller task than Vick. His Hornets won just one game in each of the past two seasons. They again are picked to finish at the bottom of the MEAC this season.

“We’re the underdogs, and that’s how we want it,” Jackson said.

Jackson also credited Deion Sanders with paving the way for he and Vick, though Sanders had a bit more coaching experience at the high school level before taking over at Jackson State, another HBCU, in 2020, a job he quickly parlayed into a power conference gig at Colorado.

“The red carpet’s already been laid, and it’s just on us to follow it,” Jackson said.

It’s a walk he can share with Vick.

“Something he may be going through is something I’m going through, and we got to figure out how we navigate through this thing because we’re not like the Georgias or Oregons or these big schools,” said Jackson, who was an offensive coordinator at a California high school last year.

“At the end of the day, we’ve got to deal with what we have to deal with. That’s nothing to cry about. We know what we stepped into, and we have a head down, chin up mentality, chest out, and we’re going to attack everything.”

What’s in store for the future? Is a Sanders path on the mind?

“I just want to be where my feet are,” Jackson said. “I can’t really worry about my next destination. I just got to worry about where I’m at right now. Hopefully, I do great things here, and it can set me up for whatever the future holds for me. But I definitely want to go big with this. I don’t necessarily mean the NFL. I think college is where I’m happy at right now.

“Right now, I’m just focused on changing this program around here at Delaware State.”

As for Vick, he hopes the future includes “winning MEAC championships.”

“I can’t look into the future, even though I’m a future guy and I like looking into the future,” he said. “I just can’t see that far. I got to control what I can control, and I want my time with them to be filled with love, laughter, and coaching.”

And not counting the days.