When he took a moment and thought that he was embarking on his 36th season in college football coaching, Todd Fitch could hardly even believe it himself.

Thinking about the path he and other college coaches have taken to begin this season was even harder to believe for the Bellaire High School graduate, who is set to begin his first season as the offensive coordinator at Vanderbilt University.

Fitch, 56, has been around the block and back in coaching. Never has dealing with an offseason of such much uncertainty and a nation-wide pandemic been part of it, though.

“Everyone is basically dealing with the same challenges,” Fitch said during a recent phone interview. “I knew from talking to other coaches and listening to our (SEC) commissioner that they were going to do everything they could to get to the season.”

Indeed they did. The SEC opens conference-only play this weekend and will play throughout December when the league holds its annual conference championship game.

Even hearing that and now being ready to take the field to take on Texas A&M, there were still plenty of doubts.

Fitch was hired after a highly successful stint under Skip Holtz at Louisiana Tech, including a bowl-victory over Miami of Florida last December.

“We won 10 games, a bowl game and had a good team coming back, so leaving that situation was tough,” Fitch said. “The hardest part, though, is leaving the relationships you’ve built. They won their opening game and I recruited the kid who caught two touchdowns. But, that’s part of this profession and this is a really good situation.”

Fitch hadn’t even had long to get settled in the Nashville area when basically everything was shut down due to COVID-19.

“We had four days of spring practice,” Fitch said. “We had three really good days of (offensive) installation and then our guys left for spring break. They came back and we had one more practice and we were taken off the field.”

Vanderbilt resumed in-person conditioning and such in late June and still wasn’t without issue.

“I felt really good about where we were mentally and heading into camp and then the COVID stuff hit us,” Fitch said. “We had one or two bouts and we lost some guys through contact tracing. There was a week where we didn’t have any of our tight ends available and it really set us back.”

It was during that period when Fitch really started to have his doubts that football without a bubble could work without a vaccine.

“We saw the numbers spike in the summer and when you start losing all of those guys through the contact tracing it really hits you and makes you wonder,” Fitch said. “To our players’ credit, though, they’ve done what’s asked of them and it’s really calmed down.”

The way that the training camp operated because of the delayed start to the season was a much different, but Fitch thought the players and coaches adjusted well.

“The toughest part was we hit the end of August and the mental clocks tells you, ‘it’s time to go (play),'” Fitch said. “But it wasn’t like that. We actually didn’t have a true camp. We basically operated with a similar schedule that we’d use in season.”

Players at Vanderbilt and throughout the SEC are getting tested three times a week. They’ll actually undergo their final test today before boarding the plane for College Station.

“I think the SEC has done a great job of listening to its medical advisors and did a good thing by setting (this weekend) as the starting date. There have already been several cancellations across the country and I think we’ve handled it well. I thought our approach was very smart.”

If dealing with the COVID-19 aspect wasn’t enough, Fitch is taking over an offense that averaged less than 17 points and 300 yards a game in 2019, which ended at 3-9.

“It’s a challenging job,” Fitch said. “Vanderbilt is a different school compared to some of the other teams in our league, but the transition (for me) has been good. We know we’re going to have to play well every week, but great challenges like this are why we get into (coaching).”

After the game with the Aggies, the Commodores come home and welcome defending national champion LSU.

“We want to be competitive and have a chance to win in the fourth quarter,” Fitch said. “But, we’re also wanting to make sure we’re improving ourselves, too. We want to be able to see growth. If we’re doing that, the results will take care of themselves. No one is putting their head in the sand to the schedule, but it’s more about us and more about improving and taking care of ourselves.”

SETH’S SCOOPS

FITCH’S SON, Curtis, who played quarterback at Appalachian State, is following in his father’s footsteps. He’s currently a graduate assistant at Louisville.

NOT EVERYONE involved with Vanderbilt athletics was new to Fitch. He and Commodore baseball coach Tim Corbin, who has built Vandy into one of the premier programs in the nation, were college buddies at Ohio Wesleyan.

“Tim is a few years older than me, but he roomed with some of the football players and was around us a lot (at Wesleyan),” Fitch said. “We didn’t see each other and talk all the time, but when he was at Clemson, I was working at South Carolina and I would see him when they came in for a series. What he’s done (at Vanderbilt) is fantastic.”