Very early last month, Florida offensive lineman Jonotthan Harrison was ejected from the Gators’ game with Arkansas for making contact with an official. More than five weeks later, Harrison has given his version of what led up to the uncharacteristic in-game boot.
Speaking to the media for the first time since his ejection, Harrison claimed that an unidentified Razorback was strafing him with f-bombs throughout the game. That language, Harrison said, led directly to what he called an accidental encounter with the official.
From the Palm Beach Post‘s Jason Lieser:“One play I got face-masked, then the next play I got called every version of the N-word known to man,” he said this afternoon. “I went up to the ref and I’m like, ‘Ref, please, you have to control this player. He’s been calling me every racial slur.’ And I talk with my hands, as you guys probably have seen this whole time, and I touched the ref in his chest. I didn’t poke him.
“There was no malicious intent. I wasn’t trying to be an A-hole or anything like that. I was honestly was just trying to tell the ref to get this player because I was getting attacked. I felt like I was getting harassed, and it was beyond football. Calling me the N-word and everything is not football anymore. It is just going out of your way.”
Harrison declined to specifically name the player who he alleges directed the string of racial epithets at him. Following Harrison’s ejection, he was seen on camera first poking an assistant coach in the chest and then head coach Will Muschamp, although that turned out to merely be the player demonstrating the what got him ejected from the game.