Two former South Alabama head football coaches have been hired to off-field roles at Mississippi State, the school announced Friday.

Joey Jones has joined Zach Arnett’s staff as director of player personnel, while Steve Campbell will be director of high school relations. Jones and Campbell were the first and second head football coaches in the history of Jaguars program.

The 60-year-old Jones coached South Alabama from the program’s inception through 2017, posting a 52-50 overall record. He spent the next two seasons as Mississippi State’s special teams coordinator under coach Joe Moorhead, but had been out of football since 2019.

Jones, a Mobile native, was an All-SEC wide receiver at Alabama in the early 1980s and later played in the USFL and NFL. He coached high school football in his home state for many years, then spent one season at Birmingham-Southern before founding the South Alabama program in 2008.

The 56-year-old Campbell was the Jaguars head coach from 2018-20, going 9-27. He spent the last two seasons as a volunteer assistant coach at UMS-Wright Prep School in Mobile, where his daughter Tate is a senior this year.

Campbell — who grew up in Pensacola, Fla., and played football at Troy — has extensive experience coaching in Mississippi, winning a Division II national championship at Delta State in 2000 and junior-college national title at Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College in 2007. He also spent the 2003 season as offensive line coach at Mississippi State under Jackie Sherrill.

Campbell was replaced by current South Alabama head coach Kane Wommack, who is 15-10 in two seasons. The Jaguars went 10-3 in 2022, reaching a bowl game for the first time since 2016.

Arnett took over as head coach at Mississippi State following the death of Mike Leach on Dec. 13. He spent the last three seasons as the Bulldogs’ defensive coordinator.