When Alabama men’s basketball coach Nate Oats suffered a tough loss, he’d sometimes get a call from Nick Saban. On Friday, Oats spoke of what Saban, who retired after 17 years as Alabama’s football coach Wednesday, meant to him.

“I’ve been very fortunate to spend four-and-a-half years at the same university as the best football coach, at least in modern football, in the country and one of the best team coaches of any sport,” Oats said. “Football, basketball, anything. So i took advantage of it early, I went to practice and went on a road trip with them, first game of my employment here.”

Oats had been listening to Saban’s public words of advice since before he was coaching at Alabama. He said Saban helped him learn better attention to detail.

He also had no insight into Greg Byrne’s search for Saban’s replacement.

“I’m not sure who Greg’s interviewing and hiring,” Oats said. “He’s pretty good at keeping that stuff all pretty quiet. I don’t know if anyone knew who I was or he had interviewed me until I got off the plane.”

Oats offered a full endorsement of Byrne’s ability to bring in a quality coach. As a coach who came from Buffalo, and wasn’t a southern native, he offered advice to any football coach who came in from another region.

“I think people, north or south, understand, they can see through fake and they can tell if you’re genuine,” Oats said. “And if you’re genuine, I think people down here in the south will welcome you in with open arms. Shoot, sure helps if you win too.”

Alabama’s coaching search continued on Friday, as Florida State’s Mike Norvell, who had reportedly been a candidate, got an extension from FSU.