Joe Novak Quotations

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.

Like having your first baby, right. He's like an expectant father.

Phil's been doing a great job of getting the ball to the right guy this season. He's playing within himself, not trying to do too much. I'm real pleased with what he's been able to do so far.

He showed me something. Not too many guys can go 70 yards on Michigan.

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.

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.

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.

Sure, winning is important. Recruits want to go where they know they can win. For some out-of-state recruits, it was a factor in their decision. I believe people in the Chicago area and in-state know what we've done in recent years.

Marquis is a good, young coach with a great future. I'm sure he will do a wonderful job at Miami. Not to brag, but our wide receiving corps blocked pretty well and that's key in our running game. Marcus motivated our kids to do something they didn't want to do. Blocking is dirty work. Marcus got them to excel at blocking and that's good coaching.

Linebackers today need to play like safeties, to drop back on coverage as well as come forward against the run. We've seen John enough times to know he's capable of that. The kid can run. He should be able to get up from 200 pounds to 215 without sacrificing his speed.

I think Randy and I both went to Miami because of the tradition they have for coaches. I think we both knew at a young age that we wanted to coach so we were drawn to Miami.

We've tried A.J. at fullback and other types of things.

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?

Michael is so big and so strong, he's a guy that's fast when he gets going. He's fast in the second 50 yards. He can learn pass blocking and he's big enough to protect the pocket passer. He belongs among the best seniors or draft-eligible players in the country.

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

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

Those were very good football teams. Every year, we'd go to a bowl and the people on the other side would kind of sell us short. I remember the Georgia people kind of chuckled at the farm kids from Ohio and we went out and whipped their butts (21-0) so it was fun.

We had some good hitting out there. Our defense is going to be much improved.

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.

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.

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.

When I went up that hill and saw the campus, I fell in love. I knew that it was what college was supposed to look like. I had a great experience there and I love Miami a lot.

You have to make sure you're asking your quarterback to do things he's capable of doing. The experience factor is the thing that's missing. Phil can't become an experienced QB in one or two games, and Josh was a three-year starter. So we have to live with that.

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.

Our earliest ever. We don't beat the Big Ten schools very often. Hardly at all, if they want a kid.

Adrian Davis is a good football player. He's a doggoned good little back. There's room in this game for players like him.

As a whole, this class is the best athletically we've brought in here.

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.

They may be overall the most talented team in the league. They have 14 seniors starting. I've been told five or six or seven of those kids are going to be draft picks.

They can't sign until 7, but Billy is an hour ahead of us.

That's a real good group of captains. I know the coaching staff and the team are extremely pleased with that foursome.

I hope we don't have to have Garrett carry it 35 times a game. He may have a game or two where he does, but I'd like to take the load off him a little bit.

I personally thought he had sticky fingers when I was around him.

He's really important to our defense. I talked about shoring up our defense, but you are talking about taking our best player out of there.

How exciting for our kids it will be to open the year at Ohio State and play at Iowa. Those are tremendous opportunities for our program.

He always has kids actively engaged in debates, discussion and projects.

He almost makes the kids feel like they were there.

For the last seven weeks, our guys have been out looking at juniors. Tomorrow we'll have our first meeting.