Southern football notebook: Dawson Odums opens up on why he hired Trei Oliver

BATON ROUGE, Louisiana -- Southern football coach Dawson Odums has had his eyes on his new defensive coordinator, Trei Oliver, for a while.

“When I first got the job, I reached out to him,” Odums said.

That was back in 2012, but their relationship goes back farther than that.

The two were former college teammates and have spent time on the same coaching staff at North Carolina A&T, where Odums plucked Oliver from in January to take over the defense.

How was he able to do that?

“Money, money, money,” Odums quipped at last week’s SWAC media day.

Previously, Odums wore two hats as both the coach and the defensive coordinator, and it wasn’t working.

The Jaguars fired three defensive coaches in December, which Odums said helped create some financial wiggle room to hire Oliver.

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