Dekalb, Ill. ? Jerry Kill is the new football coach at Northern Illinois, less than a week after seeing Southern Illinois fall in a national semifinal game.

Northern introduced Kill on Thursday as the successor to Joe Novak, who retired last month after 12 seasons as head coach of the Huskies.

The job is a promotion for Kill. Southern Illinois is in what used to be Division I-AA, while NIU is a Mid-America Conference team in what formerly was Division I.