updated 6:48 p.m. ET Jan. 7, 2006

RICHMOND, Va. - Marcus Vick apologized to Virginia Tech on Saturday and said his next stop will be the NFL.

Not that he had many options as far as football was concerned after being tossed off the Virginia Tech team a day earlier.

The junior quarterback dazzled on the field but carried a long list of transgressions. His latest display — stomping on the leg of a fallen opponent during the Gator Bowl — prompted an outpouring of letters to the university and a plea from his mother that her son not be portrayed as a “monster.”

Vick, the brother of Atlanta Falcons quarterback Michael Vick, had said before Monday’s bowl victory over Louisville that he needed to return to Virginia Tech for another year of development. Now he plans to enter the NFL draft rather than finish his college career elsewhere.

“I am very excited about this opportunity and look forward to proving my athletic ability at the professional level,” he said in a statement released through his lawyers. “I believe I am ready for this challenge and the next chapter of my life.”

During the Gator Bowl, Vick was shown on tape stomping on the left calf of Louisville All-American defensive end Elvis Dumervil after a tackle. Vick claimed it was an accident, but school officials said Saturday they thought it looked intentional.

“We have received hundreds of letters from fans and alumni who are disturbed by what they saw,” university president Charles Steger said at a Saturday news conference.

Vick, after contemplating his conduct, said: “I deeply regret that I allowed my competitive emotions to take control” in the Gator Bowl.

“To all of the Virginia Tech community, I sincerely apologize,” he said.

Vick said he appreciated the trust coach Frank Beamer had placed in him during his stay at Virginia Tech. The coach visited the quarterback and his mother to tell him he was off the team.

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“It wasn’t any fun,” an ashen Beamer said Saturday. “It was difficult. I hate it when there’s disappointment. You wish you maybe could have done something more, better.”

Vick was suspended from school in 2004 because of several legal problems, and came under intense scrutiny again because of replays of his actions against Dumervil. Vick claimed it was accidental, but hurt his cause by claiming to have apologized to Dumervil, the NCAA sacks leader. Dumervil said he received no such apology.

The last straw came Friday, even as Beamer was preparing to visit Vick and offer him the options of accepting a two-game suspension or deciding to leave Virginia Tech.

A fax sent to Steger’s office disclosed that Vick had been stopped for driving 38 mph in a 25 mph zone and driving with a revoked or suspended license on Dec. 17. Vick had told Beamer about the ticket for driving on a suspended license on Dec. 19, Beamer said, but had never mentioned to anyone that he’d also been caught speeding.

Vick’s license had been taken away in August 2004 when he was cited for reckless driving and marijuana possession, but had been reinstated until a friend driving a car owned by Vick was pulled over and found to not have insurance, Beamer said.

Vick received a citation as the car owner, but an investigation by the school revealed that getting his license reinstated was merely a formality, Beamer was told.

Vick entered this season trying to win his team’s trust and knowing he would face hostility from opposing fans, mostly stemming from his drug arrest and another conviction for serving alcohol to underage girls during the 2003 school year.

He said he was ready for anything, but reacted to chants of “rapist!” and “child molester!” at West Virginia on Oct. 1 by gesturing obscenely toward the crowd. He met with Beamer afterward and apologized to the team and to Mountaineers fans.

Vick was the runner-up to Wake Forest’s Chris Barclay, by one vote, as the Atlantic Coast Conference’s offensive player of the year, and was the league’s first-team quarterback.

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The dismissal hit Vick’s mother, Brenda Boddie, hard.

“I cried a lot yesterday,” she said in a phone interview with The Associated Press. “But we’re just going to move on and make something positive out of this and Marcus is going to show everybody that he’s not the person a lot of people claim he is.”

She agreed that her son “did the wrong thing” and said she understood why Tech dismissed him.

Beamer said he, Steger and athletic director Jim Weaver agreed once all the evidence was in that the outcome had to be dismissal.

“When I go into a home and talk about how I’m going to do my best to make everything at Virginia Tech turn out successful and be good and then it doesn’t reach that — it’s disappointing to me as a coach,” the coach said.

“I can tell you he’s deeply hurt, he’s deeply saddened. I can assure you this kid is very, very hurt, his mom is very, very hurt and I’m hurting with them.”

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