Les Miles, turf-tasting enthusiast, prefers LSU grass to Alabama

Sixty-one-year-old Les Miles has actually been known to eat the grass from the playing field during games.

You may know Les Miles as the highly decorated head coach of LSU's football team, but he's more than just that. He's also a connoisseur of sorts, a man with an appreciation for taste... of the grass on a football field. Yes, you read that correctly: 61-year-old Les Miles has actually been known to eat the grass from the playing field during games.

It's a tradition of his that dates to at least 2010, when CBS caught him munching on a few blades of grass during a home game against Alabama. LSU would go on to win that game, and when asked about his bizarre choice of mid-game snack, he stated that it was a ritual.

“I have a tradition that humbles me as a man, that lets me know that I'm a part of the field and a part of the game,” he said. “You should have seen some games before this. I can tell you one thing: The grass in Tiger Stadium tastes best.”

Technically, eating grass wouldn't make someone part of a field so much as the other way around, but that's beside the point. Miles reaffirmed the last part of that 2010 quote on Wednesday at the SEC's weekly teleconference, when a journalist asked about the taste and texture of the grass at Alabama's Bryant-Denny Stadium.

“I have to be very honest,” Miles said. “I've enjoyed the grass in Baton Rouge much more. It's kind of a home field.”

What could be the reason that LSU grass tastes so good? Could it be the extra paint on the grass, since Tiger Stadium has number markings on yard lines ending in 5 as well as 0? Could Louisiana's extensive sugarcane cultivation be somehow making the grass sweeter throughout the state? Either way, LSU and Alabama have a massive matchup this Saturday in Tuscaloosa, and Miles will have to live with the inferior-tasting grass in order to knock his arch rival out of the playoff picture.

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- Jeremy Layton