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College Football

Nate Oats apologizes for shoving Missouri player, Dennis Gates responds

Keith Farner

By Keith Farner

Published:

Nate Oats shoved Missouri’s Aidan Shaw during a skirmish in the game in Tuscaloosa Tuesday night.

Oats, the Alabama coach, appeared to push Shaw toward the Missouri bench as an official got in the middle to ease tensions with Oats, Shaw and Alabama’s Aaron Estrada. Ultimately, Alabama won the game 93-75, but this incident was notable for both sides.

Estrada fouled Missouri’s Anthony Robinson II after a rebound with 7:34 left in the first half. The two players were tangled, and Shaw stepped to Estrada as the play ended. Oats then stepped in between Estrada and Shaw to separate them and that’s when he pushed Shaw in the direction of the Missouri bench.

After the game, Oats shared his message to both Shaw and Missouri coach Dennis Gates.

“I have all the respect in the world for the job (Gates has) done as an assistant and head coach,” Oats said. “No disrespect to him or his program. I apologized to both Coach Gates and Aidan Shaw. Aidan seems like a great kid. It’s an unfortunate situation, but I apologized to both of them.”

Missouri coach Dennis Gates said if a player did the same thing, it’d be an automatic technical foul.

Oats said he has a lot of respect for Gates as the coaches have known each other since Oats was a high school coach. Oats added that he believes Shaw is a great kid.

Keith Farner

A former newspaper veteran, Keith Farner is a news manager for Saturday Down South.

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