"Joe Novak" is 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.

Novak played college football as a defensive end at Miami University under head coach Bo Schembechler. After beginning his coaching career in the high school ranks, Novak had stints as an assistant coach at Miami, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign/University of Illinois, Northern Illinois, and Indiana University Bloomington/Indiana University. At Illinois, he served under head coach Gary Moeller, who had been one of the assistants at Miami under Schembechler. Novak was a longtime assistant of Bill Mallory, another Miami assistant coach and alum. Novak served on Mallory's staffs from 1980-1995.

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[Garrett] could have played in the second half [last Saturday], but we were trying to be smart about it. We'll watch him closely. His shoulder just slips in and out a little bit.

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Even with a full-out blitz, it's hard to get a sack.

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We can be a good ball club next fall. And it all starts with our senior captains.

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The spread limits things you can do. You are going to get beat if you play a lot of man-to-man. We're not nearly as good on defense. If we gamble, we're not talented enough. We're going to give up a lot of big plays. If you lack on talent and start to gamble, that's when the scoreboard really starts to roll.

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I've never been around a team that's been penalized as much as we were today. That was awful.

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You used to have to block 10 or 11 guys. Instead of playing 5-on-5 in basketball, it's 2-on-2 or 3-on-3. You spread it out.

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Defenses in that league have got 11 guys who can run. The field shrinks.

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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.

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We have a good group up front that we'll be able to rotate in and out.

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