Nate Oats has been feeling pretty good lately.

After Oats brought the Alabama Crimson Tide to its first-ever Final Four appearance, he called Alabama a “championship school.”

Then, on last night’s appearance on Hey Coach where coaches across all of Alabama’s sport join and talk about their teams, Oats took the opportunity to take a little jab at his arch-rival, the Auburn Tigers:

“We could not have the other school in the state having the only Final Four in the state. That didn’t sit well, that had to change. I’m sorry it took 5 years but we got it changed.

We've got our hands full but trying to get out of that first game in the Final Four but we're… pic.twitter.com/Zm8IdOWCuX

— The Next Round (@NextRoundLive) April 2, 2024

“We could not have the other school in the state having the only Final Four in the state,” Oats said to a round of raucous applause without even mentioning Auburn by name.

“That didn’t sit well, that had to change. I’m sorry it took 5 years but we got it changed…we now have one, we’ve got our hands full trying to get out of that first game in the Final Four but we’re gonna give it everything we got.”

Oats went on to address the immense challenge that Connecticut will be to face

“We’ll get a game plan together our staff has been on it. We’ve got some basketball junkies on staff that have put together some pretty good game plans. We’ll get it in place. We’ve had the players step up game after game after game, so I’m pretty confident we’ll have some guys step up on Saturday.”

Auburn qualified for the Final Four during the 2019 NCAA Tournament right before Oats was hired in Tuscaloosa. Though the Tigers fell in a heartbreaker to eventual national champion Virginia, Alabama is trying to get a leg up on its rival by actually winning a game in the Final Four.

But a matchup against UCONN is as tall a task as the Tide will face all year.

Michael Brauner is a Senior Sports Analyst and Contributing Writer for Yellowhammer News. You can follow him on Twitter @MBraunerWNSP