The Erath and Abbeville High head football jobs officially became open Friday morning, and thus far, the School Board has received three applicants for the Erath job and none for the Abbeville head coach.

Sending in an application for the Erath football job on Monday were Larry Breaux, an assistant coach at Acadiana High School, John Fontenot, who is coaching in Orange Beach, Fla. and Charlie Cryer, who is an assistant coach at Northwest High near Opelousas.

Applicants have until Friday at 4:30 p.m. to apply.

The Erath head football coaching job became open when long-time head coach Jacob Byler announced his retirement at the end of this season. He had been the head football coach for 22 years - the longest tenure at a school in Vermilion Parish. He leaves as the winningest head coach at EHS.

Erath principal Francis Touchet said last week that 12 resumes were mailed to him from interested coaches, but thus far, only three have applied.

Two out of the three applicants have something in common - they both helped coach a team to a state title.

Cryer was the head coach at Vermilion Catholic five years ago, the year the Eagles won the state Class A state title. The next year he resigned because of transcript problems. VC was the last place he was a head football coach. Since resigning at VC, he coached football at Acadiana Prep and Northwest.

Breaux is the defensive coordinator at Acadiana High. He helped get the Rams to the Superdome for three straight years. In 2007, the Rams won the Class 5A state title.