Following a few inflammatory tweets before the 27-19 win against N.C. State, North Carolina tight end Eric Ebron was dissuaded from using Twitter and kept away from the media for the week. After Saturday’s win, he had quite a few things to say about trash talking, N.C. State’s new midfield logo and the “Our State” campaign. Here’s a transcript of his colorful words:
Does anything that that the (N.C. State players) said to you stick out?
No. I don’t care. I absolutely do not care.
Did you say anything back?
Oh yeah. Yes. Why wouldn’t I?
Do you like trash talking on the field?
I love trash talking to the players. The fans don’t play so it doesn’t bother me. It just amazes me how when they’re up, they’re all State. And when they’re down it’s all ‘You guys this and you guys that.’” Role reversing, huh. Nobody really cares.
What did you think of their logo?
It’s beautiful. Looks just like ECU, don’t it?
What it’s like like to win in there?
It’s definitely sweet. My freshman year, we came here. We were shut out. That feeling, that taste that was in your mouth for two years just sat there. We came back and we were relentless. We made mistakes, as does every football team, but we were relentless. We kept coming at them and kept coming at them, no matter what.
When you guys were chanting “Whose State? Our State,” you seemed to really relish that. Was there a statement made today?
Definitely. We let them know this is our state. If we don’t have your respect already, we’re going to keep on taking it. And until the point you have no choice but to respect us. I mean this is our state. Our win ratio to their losses, we’re killing them. So you’ve just got to let them know whose state this really is.
What was the message you got from coach Fedora (on tweeting this week):
Just to stop tweeting and let my actions speak louder than my words. Coach Fedora, coach Bell, coach Anderson, they know no matter what I say, it’s never going to affect my game and as we saw here, it’s not. THe talking I did was more for my teammates and myself and more for the State fans because I wanted a challenge because if this is really your state, then come prove it and that’s what we went for.
Marquise was saying the tweets, they felt like they needed to follow through on your tweets even though it wasn’t them tweeting it per se.
My teammates have my back. THey know I go out every game, every practice and do everything that I can for them. No matter what I say, no matter what I do, I’ve got every one of my teammates’ respect and they know that I’m here for them. And the only thing I do is I grind and I fight and I get hurt and beat down for them.
You really put yourself out there this week, do you feel like you specifically needed this win?
Nope. I just went out there and played the way I usually play. I didn’t feel like I needed to do anything. I didn’t feel like I needed to become superman. I didn’t feel like I needed to do anything that the coaches did not put in the game for me to do. And I went out there and I executed everything they asked me to do, except that fumble, that was an accident. After that, I went out there and I just tore it up.
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