Prairie View A&M head coach Tremaine Jackson gave his side of the incident that occurred on Saturday against Stephen F. Austin. Lumberjack tight end Gerard Edimo suffered an injury after a tackle by Prairie View A&M defensive back Eric Zachary. In media availability on Monday, Stephen F. Austin head coach Colby Carthel weighed in, calling the play the second dirtiest play he'd seen in his 27-year college football coaching career.
“27 years of college football, that was the second dirtiest, most unsportsmanlike play I've seen in my career. Absolutely no business in this game for a play like that. Disgusting, it's pathetic…And Gerad Edimo is a great kid. Hope my son grows up to be like Gerad Edimo. He's a single digit for a reason. He made a routine play, got his leg near yanked off the bone, and probably ended his career. He's got two years left, and he'll probably never play another snap of football because of a dirty, unsportsmanlike play.”
Carthel specifically went after Zachary, saying that he taunted Edimo following the play.
“The young man got up and then made fun of him as he walked off. Disgusting, pathetic.”
Jackson joined the HBCU Coach's Corner to respond to the criticism and specifically defend Zachary. Jackson says that the criticism was news to him, as he believes it should have been addressed in the moments following the game.
“If [Carthel] thought that play was a problem, he shook my hand at midfield and told me how great of a program we had and for us to go win the national championship. There was no mention of the play.”
Jackson then emphasized that Carthel could have brought up the play in other moments, but he didn't.
Article Continues Below“We sat with their coaches on both sides of the ball on Sunday and we talked about what we thought about each other's teams and the different tendencies each other had. There was no mention of the play or anything that was thought to be dirty. So I was a little blindsided this morning when I walked in the office.”
Jackson then pointed out an unknown portion of the exchange on the field where Zachary also injured himself.
“People don't know this, Eric Zachery hurt his hand on that same play. And we thought his hand was broken. So I understand what it looks like, but it don't look like what people making it look like. We talked to Eric about what things look like,” Jackson said. “We talked to Eric about, ‘Hey man, you can't get up over somebody and celebrate.' He didn't know the kid was hurt. Didn't even know the kid was hurt.”
Then went on to show love to Zachary and speak positively about him.
“He's a 3.2 student that's a really good corner and does community service and responds to little kids' letters when they send them pictures to get autographed,” Jackson said. “That's who Eric Zachery is, from West Dallas. And where he's from, the stats say he's not supposed to be doing what he's doing right now. And he's on pace to graduate, by the way.”