Trio with area ties added to UNC Charlotte football coaching staff under former Ohio coach Albin

Fitch, Nardo, Woods join 49ers

By Jeff Harrison

   Three individuals with local connections will be joining forces under new head coach Tim Albin on the UNC Charlotte football staff for 2025.

  Recently named to the 49ers' staff were Todd Fitch (Associated Head Coach/Offensive Coordinator/Quarterbacks Coach), Bryan Nardo (Safeties Coach) and Tyler Woods (Assistant Director of Player Personnel).

  Fitch is a 1982 graduate of Bellaire High School who played defensive back for four years at Ohio Wesleyan University (1982-85). His coaching experience has spanned nearly 40 years - graduate assistant at Ohio Wesleyan and Bowling Green, volunteer assistant at West Virginia; assistant at Bowling Green, Colorado State, Connecticut, South Carolina, Iowa State, East Carolina, South Florida, Boston College, Louisiana Tech and Vanderbilt; offensive assistant at LSU and Ohio State.

  Nardo is a native of Shadyside, a graduate of St. John Central High School and Ohio University. While at OU, he was a student assistant (2004-08) and then spent three seasons as a graduate assistant. He moved on to Missouri S&T for a year; eight years as defensive coordinator at Emporia State; two years as linebackers coach at Youngstown State; one year as defensive coordinator at Gannon University and two years as defensive coordinator at Oklahoma State University.

  Woods was a three-sport (soccer, basketball, baseball) athlete at Philo High School (Class of 2020). He then graduated from Ohio University in 2023 with a degree in Sports Management and Business Analytics. While there, he was a Student Assistant with the Bobcats' football program, working with the receivers in 2021 before switching to recruiting and operations in 2022-23, including building and running the transfer portal database. This past season, he served as an intern in the recruiting department at the University of Georgia. 

  He is the son of Pete Woods, a graduate of Bellaire High School and Marshall University who is now the athletic director at West Muskingum High School, and the grandson of Regis Woods who was head football coach at Martins Ferry in the early 1970s and later served as superintendent at both Bellaire and Cambridge as well as interim superintendent at Buckeye Trail and Barnesville. Tyler's brother, Jared - a 2017 Philo High grad who played soccer at LaRoche College and then received his master’s degree in Sports Science - is in his third year as strength coach for men's basketball, women's soccer and men's gymnastics at West Point/Army.

  Charlotte's new head coach - Tim Albin - was the head coach at Ohio University the last four years, posting a 33-19 record including three straight 10-win seasons culminating in an 11-3 record in 2024 which earned the Bobcats the Mid-American Conference championship and a trip to the StaffDNA Cure Bowl in Orlando, Florida where they defeated Jacksonville State, 30-27. Albin was named the MAC Coach of the Year.