Western North Carolina Sports - David vs Goliath Angle

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BOONE – LSU football coach Les Miles makes $3.75 million a year; Appalachian State coach Jerry Moore makes $190,000 a year.

Miles deals with dozens of media requests daily; Moore’s post-practice media meeting one day last week consisted of two students with the school paper.

Moore apologized for cutting the session short; in the couple of hours between two-a-day practices, he had to go home to cut his grass.

I wonder if Les Miles cuts his grass.

And I wonder if Miles ever stops to think that Moore, who will be across the field matching wits when the two Division I defending champions meet in a college football season opener on Saturday, is partly responsible for his huge salary.

The Mountaineers shocked the world in the 2007 season opener with a win at No. 5 Michigan. Not long after, Wolverines coach Lloyd Carr decided to retire.

Losing four straight bowl games and going 1-6 against Ohio State also helped convince Carr that a rocking chair on the front porch sounded nice.

But losing at home to a FCS program — even the best one in the country — got fans to thinking about planting a real estate sign on Carr’s lawn.

Carr leaving opened up one of the game’s dream jobs, and media hype turned full force toward Miles.

He played and coached there under legendary Bo Schembechler, married a Michigan woman, had professed his love for the university.

That, a 32-5 record at LSU and an upcoming national title was enough to convince the Tigers that they didn’t want to lose another coach capable of taking them to the top.

Nick Saban, the Larry Brown of football, had skipped out to the NFL after guiding LSU to a national crown, only to resurface at SEC rival Alabama a couple of years later.

So LSU took Miles’ five-year contract at $1.8 million per and turned it into five years at $3.75 million per.

Moore has won three straight national championships at the FCS level; he’s gotten a $10,000 annual raise after each of his last two national titles, with incentives to earn $25,000 more.

Miles probably pays a guy $10,000 a year to cut his grass.

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