Joe Novak
Joe Novak
Joe Novakis a former American football player and coach. He served as the head football coach at Northern Illinois University from 1996 to 2007, compiling a record of 63–76...
needed sloppy win
A win is a win. It was a sloppy win, but a win nonetheless. I'll tell you what ? after two losses, we needed this win bad.
beat best played time ton
The time we got beat we blitzed a whole ton and we weren't even in the ballgame. We got ripped. The best we've played them was when we were completely conservative defensively. That's our style.
best brought class
As a whole, this class is the best athletically we've brought in here.
beat earliest hardly schools ten
Our earliest ever. We don't beat the Big Ten schools very often. Hardly at all, if they want a kid.
backs best lines offensive running
That was one of the best offensive lines I've been around. Does the O-line make the running backs look good, or is it the running backs who make the O-line look good?
couple defense gonna played
I think a couple of things showed today. I think our defense is gonna be much improved. And offensively, we didn't play well, but we played without a lot of kids.
ahead billy hour sign until
They can't sign until 7, but Billy is an hour ahead of us.
biggest both considered dan decide good interior itself mark might offensive phil question situation sophomore sorted step wide work
Our biggest question mark might be our interior offensive line. We also have to get the linebackers sorted out. Decide who will step in at wide receiver, and the quarterback situation will work itself out. In my opinion, we have two really good ones (senior Phil Horvath and sophomore Dan Nicholson) who could both be considered starters.
basic coaches job learned looked miami opening sound tradition
I think back then, the coaches kind of looked out for each other. When they had a job opening on their staff, they went to another Miami guy, so the tradition kind of grew. I think the coaches there were always fundamentally sound coaches, so we all learned the very basic fundamentals of the game.
front good group
We have a good group up front that we'll be able to rotate in and out.
ball block field impressive kids pass run sit throw
What's impressive is he'll sit back in pass protection, and then we'll throw the ball down the field and he'll run down field and block a safety. I mean, get down field! You just don't see kids who can do that. He's special.
beat coach friend good last love people respect win worst
When you know someone, you want to win that much more. You want to beat people you respect even more than the people you may not know. It's just like with (Michigan) coach (Lloyd) Carr last week. I love coach Carr, he's a good friend of mine, but I wanted to beat him in the worst way.
extra knew
We didn't think he had capped out yet. We knew he could play in the NFL, but we didn't know if he'd have that extra oomph he'd need.
continuity game good passing spring wish
We didn't get a good continuity in our passing game with our quarterbacks and receivers. That's probably the one thing this spring that we didn't come out with as good a feel as I wish we had.