Southern remaking football staff, but won’t have spring practice

BATON ROUGE, Louisiana -- Southern coach Dawson Odums is making progress in remaking his staff, but the new group won’t be able to conduct spring practice.

For the second consecutive year the Jaguars will not have spring practice to fulfill lingering NCAA sanctions from 2012 related to insufficient Academic Progress Rates.

Odums said Wednesday that Southern chose the forfeiture of spring practice rather than accept a postseason ban for last season.

At a news conference to discuss the hiring of new defensive coordinator Trei Oliver, Odums revealed additional staff changes. Oliver, who had coached the outside linebackers at North Carolina A&T, will also oversee the Jaguars secondary. He will choose whether to coach the safeties or the cornerbacks and special teams coordinator Steve Adams, who coached the safeties last season, will coach whichever group Oliver doesn’t choose.

Last year’s cornerbacks coach, Chris Scott, was among three defensive assistants Odums fired shortly after last season. The other two were defensive line coach Myron Jackson and linebackers coach Lorick Atkinson.

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