MOBILE, Ala. (AP) -- Birmingham-Southern College coach Joey Jones apparently has been hired as South Alabama's first football coach -- a move that takes him back to his native Mobile and eventually into the Sun Belt Conference.

Jones, 45, met with his BSC team in a closed session about 4 p.m. Thursday. Through a BSC athletics department spokesman, Jones said he could not comment.

Jones had met with USA Athletics Director Joe Gottfried for the third time on Wednesday and apparently accepted the offer Thursday afternoon.

Gottfried said Thursday morning he had nothing to announce about the hiring, but South Alabama plans an 11 a.m. news conference Friday to announce its decision.

South Alabama's trustees in December voted to start a football program at the campus with its spring enrollment totaling 13,045. The school will field its first team in 2009.

The Jaguars will transition to full Division I-A membership in 2013 as a member of the Sun Belt Conference, where South Alabama is already a member in other sports.

The Press-Register in Mobile reported Jones' salary will be $275,000. His salary at BSC, where he was the school's first football coach since 1939, was approximately $150,000.

Jones coached BSC's first football team since 1939 last year. He previously coached Mountain Brook High School.

His Division III team was 1-7 in its first season, playing almost exclusively with freshmen and sophomores. The Panthers also won two junior varsity games.

Jones, a football star at Murphy High School, played the final three years of coach Paul "Bear" Bryant's career at Alabama and finished his eligiblity in 1983 under Ray Perkins.

Jones played for the NFL's Atlanta Falcons and the Birmingham Stallions of the USFL.

He won 77 percent of his games in a 13-year high-school coaching career. He was 101-27 at Mountain Brook and 24-11 at Dora.