This TCU player was ‘sucker punched’ last summer. The assailant was found not guilty.

TCU tight end Cole Novak couldn’t play football last season.

Novak broke his jaw in two places and required emergency surgery after being punched outside of an Austin bar last summer. But the man who punched him, 25-year-old Humberto “Beto” Barrera, was found not guilty of aggravated assault by a Travis County jury on Wednesday, as reported by the Austin American-Statesman.

The verdict is not sitting well with Novak’s family.

“We’re very disappointed and just absolutely blown away by the jury’s verdict,” his father, Jeff Novak, told the Star-Telegram in a phone interview. “The accused didn’t even take the stand. The jury I guess found him innocent because they felt a ‘sucker punch’ was necessary and the right level of response to protect the third party from any more danger. So I guess if you’re a big guy, people can haul off and sucker-punch you just in case you get angry.”

Cole Novak is 6-foot-6 and 260 pounds. He missed TCU’s practice on Tuesday to testify. He told the jury he wasn’t looking to fight. Instead, he was trying to cool things down between his brother, Cade, and Barrera’s friend outside a bar.

That’s when Barrera busted his jaw with a punch that Cole Novak described as being struck with a baseball bat.

“Six hours of emergency surgery … tragic deal,” Jeff Novak said. “Cole was the victim in this whole deal. I was just talking to him on the phone and he said, ‘It’s going to look like I was bullying someone since they let this guy walk.’ But that’s not the case.”

The Novak’s intend to file a civil lawsuit against Barrera and hope to get some justice that way.

In the meantime, Cole Novak is putting the ordeal behind him and focusing on his final season at TCU. The NCAA had already granted him a waiver because of a pre-existing knee injury, which he underwent surgery for in February 2017.

That proved to be a blessing in disguise as he lost 25 to 30 pounds because of the jaw injury. He could not eat solid foods for three weeks, and wasn’t able to gain the weight back in enough to time to play for the Frogs.

“It looks like he’s going to see a lot of playing time this season, so he’s just got to move forward from this,” said Jeff, a former NFL player with the Jacksonville Jaguars and member of Texas State’s athletic hall of honor. “Cole is a super late bloomer in football. He didn’t play football in high school and walked on at TCU his sophomore year and really had to learn how to play football then. But he’s been running with the one’s in spring and with the one’s in camp, so he’s in a spot to contribute this year.”

Cole Novak has played in nine games throughout his TCU career. He saw action in one game as a sophomore in 2015, and eight as a junior in 2016.

This story was originally published August 16, 2018 at 2:00 PM.