ESPN College GameDay crew debate Nate Oats shove, Jay Bilas defends Alabama coach
![alabama-coach-nate-oats-provides-injury-updates-ahead-of-season-mohamed-wague-mouhamed-dioubate](https://on3static.com/cdn-cgi/image/height=417,width=795,quality=90,fit=cover,gravity=0.5x0.5/uploads/dev/assets/cms/2023/10/18133937/Nate-Oats-7.jpg)
On Saturday morning’s edition of ESPN College GameDay, the crew revisited the controversy of the week in the SEC, where Jay Bilas actually took up for Nate Oats after he was reprimanded by the league for pushing a Missouri player.
During Alabama’s game against Mizzou, a Tiger player wondered over to the Crimson Tide bench and infiltrated their huddle, which elicited a push out of the huddle by Oats. Nothing bigger was incited, thankfully, but Oats was scolded by the SEC as coaches are not supposed to ever lay their hands on an opposing player.
Jay Bilas understands that rule and is fine with the reprimand, but he’s also ready to move on and places a lot of the blame for the situation on the Missouri player rather than Oats. Here was his explanation of that case:
“The Nate Oats thing, that was nothing. It was a little subway push. Now, we can say you should never touch another player. I agree with that. He got reprimanded by the SEC. To me, it’s over.
“But one thing we’re not talking about, is on the opposing player’s part, don’t come in the other team’s huddle! That’s part of this too. If a player had come into our huddle, which happened when I was a player, we got him out of there. Look, that was very little contact there. It was a de-escalating move.
“I agree, don’t touch another player, but don’t go in the other team’s huddle, too. That never would have happened if the player didn’t go in the other team’s huddle. If you wanna be in the other team’s huddle, commit to Alabama. You know where your bench is.”
Even with Bilas’ defense, Rece Davis noted that Oats would still probably like to have that one back: “Clearly, if he had to do it over again, he would have spoken rather than use physical contact.”
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Fellow former Duke player and College GameDay analyst Jay Williams agreed with Bilas that it’s not always easy to make the reasonable decision in the heat of the moment.
“One of the things that frustrates me — when you’re competing and there’s a competitive fire. You can’t just expect to turn that switch off all of a sudden to make the right decision,” he commented. “I agree with Jay.”
However, Seth Greenberg actually gives the Missouri player a little credit for not reacting stronger to the shove, because there’s a lot of college athletes that may not take such an act so well.
“There’s a scary part of that also, because if you push him, he might react and that’s a concern,” explained Greenberg. “You put a lot of pressure on a young kid to make the right decision.”
Andraya Carter agreed on Greenberg’s point as well. Overall, not a huge deal, but as they all note, coaches simply aren’t supposed to be touching opposing players.