Northwestern State University of Louisana

In the second year of his second stint at Northwestern State, Norman Joseph has an adjusted role on the Demon coaching staff.

After spending the 2024 season as the Demon offensive coordinator, Joseph will be Blaine McCorkle's assistant head coach while maintaining his work with the Northwestern quarterbacks.

Joseph is a coaching veteran with a career marked by record-setting offenses, play-calling innovations and quarterback development. He has a special history in Louisiana, having coached at four colleges in the state — Northwestern State, ULM, Louisiana Tech and Louisiana College. Notably, in Louisiana, Joseph coached three quarterbacks who later earned Super Bowl rings.

Joseph spent the 2023 season as the offensive coordinator at Stetson University in DeLand, Florida, following a two-year run as the head coach and assistant athletic director at McGill-Toolen Catholic High School in Mobile, Alabama.

Under Joseph, Stetson’s offense led the Pioneer Football League and ranked 32nd nationally in passing yardage (241.3 yards per game). Joseph’s offensive scheme also allowed a young bench to finish third in the conference in total offense.

A season before heading to McGill-Toolen, Joseph celebrated a state championship as Catholic-Baton Rouge’s offensive coordinator, winning the title on NSU’s Turpin Stadium turf.

Joseph spent the 2018-19 seasons at Southeastern University in Lakeland, Florida, helping lead the Fire to a conference title in 2018. 

That sojourn to Florida followed 11 years of coaching in Mississippi, including a nine-season run as the head coach at Mississippi College from 2005-13.

Joseph’s best season at Mississippi College came in 2009 when the Choctaws went 9-3 and posted a 7-1 mark in the American Southwest Conference, capturing the school’s first ASC championship since 1997. 

Led by Gagliardi Trophy finalist quarterback Adam Shaffer, Mississippi College defeated Huntington in the first round of the Division III playoffs.

That season, Mississippi College produced three D3Football.com All-Americans — tight end Renard Ellis, offensive lineman Josh Lankford and linebacker Quartez Ashmore. Additionally, Joseph was named the ASC Coach of the Year and American Football Coaches Association Regional Coach of the Year.

Two seasons earlier, the Choctaws’ Shaffer-led offense set school records for scoring offense, total yards, first downs, passing yards, pass completions, pass attempts, touchdown passes and overall touchdowns. Shaffer threw for 3,500 yards — ranking third nationally. 

In Joseph’s first season in Clinton, Shaffer set the school’s freshman records for passing yards, completions and touchdowns and established a school single-game record with seven touchdown passes against Belhaven.

Throughout his nine seasons at Mississippi College, Joseph tutored six All-Americans, including wide receiver Jake Allen, who spent time with the Cleveland Browns and Green Bay Packers of the NFL.

Joseph returned to the head coaching ranks in 2004 at then-Louisiana College, leading the Wildcats to a 5-5 mark. In his lone season in Pineville, Joseph’s team established 38 team and 41 individual records and ranked seventh nationally in passing yards, 15th in total offense and 28th in scoring offense.

That followed offensive coordinator stops at Midwestern State University (2003) and San Jose State (2001-02). 

At Midwestern State, Joseph’s offense led the Lone Star Conference in rushing yards and allowed the fewest sacks in the league. MSU’s 5.3 yards per carry average set a school record.

At San Jose State, Joseph embraced the West Coast offense. It was during that time that Joseph’s Spartan offense set a NCAA Division I record for combined total offense in a game (1,640 yards of combined total offense in a win against the University of Nevada) — a record that remained intact from 2001 to 2016. 

Joseph’s first head coaching stop in his career came at then-Belhaven College where he was the school’s first head coach.

While building the Blazers’ program, his first two years saw Belhaven become the only NAIA coach in the nation with a 1,000-yard rusher and a 1,000-yard receiver in back-to-back seasons.

His 1999 Belhaven team spent six consecutive weeks ranked in the NAIA Top 25 and produced 20 all-conference players, evenly split between the first and second teams. 

In his three seasons at Belhaven, Joseph produced a 16-15 mark, including a 10-9 conference record.

During the 1994-1996 seasons, Joseph served as the offensive coordinator at the University of Southern Mississippi. In 1996 his Golden Eagle offense ranked second in the conference in scoring and led the nation in turnover margin. He also coached a quarterback to a #4 NCAA ranking in passing efficiency. He helped USM go 20-13 over his three years with most of the losses against nationally ranked SEC and ACC teams.

Prior to USM, he was the offensive coordinator at then-Northeast Louisiana University. 

His NLU offense became the first NCAA offense in history to produce a 2,000-yard passer, two 1,000-yard rushers and a 1,000-yard receiver in one year. In 1993, Irving Spikes rushed for a still-standing school-record 1,563 yards. He helped NLU to four straight winning seasons ranking #1 in the conference in scoring, passing and total offense. His offense ranked eighth in the country in scoring offense in 1992 and third in the country in 1993. NLU won conference championships in 1990 and 1992 and received FCS playoff berths in 1990, 1992 and 1993.

In Joseph’s first stop at Northwestern State, he spent two seasons (1988-89) as the passing game and recruiting coordinator, helping the Demons capture the 1988 Southland Conference championship and a #8 national ranking. The Demons led the Southland in scoring, total offense and rushing offense during his first NSU tenure. 

In 1987, he was the passing and recruiting coordinator at Louisiana Tech after a nine-season stint as a position coach at NLU from 1978-1986. He also served as a volunteer coach at Vanderbilt University in 1977.

A Churchman All-American at Mississippi State University, Joseph is a 1977 MSU graduate who earned his master’s degree in education from NLU in 1979.

Joseph and his wife, Jane, are the parents of three daughters — Elizabeth, Grace Anne and Sara Catherine.