2020 was a strange, weird time for a college football coach. The season wasn't lost, but riding into the thick of the year felt like a castle erected on soft mud. Individual schools and conferences attempted to complete a full schedule under a global pandemic, and the surreality of cancellations and constant rescheduled postponements turned a grind into a grueling and unrelenting daily struggle.
The very public weight of the season pressurized players and coaches living under the equal, indiscriminate threat of the novel coronavirus. Every game felt like a small victory before the opening kickoff just because the completed work of climbing that constant mountain enabled it.