David Young enters his first season at Arkansas in 2026 after serving as assistant director of football performance at Tennessee (2022-25).
Prior to Tennessee, Young worked at UCF, where he was served as assistant director of sports performance since 2017. Young joined the UCF sports performance staff after a stint as head strength and conditioning coach at Vassar College. At Vassar, Young was responsible for the performance enhancement and injury prevention of the student-athletes in 23 varsity and four club varsity programs.
Young previously worked with the San Francisco 49ers, where he assisted with coaching and implementation of programming for NFL athletes. He also worked with injured athletes through return-to-play stages. He worked as an assistant strength and conditioning coach, graduate assistant and intern during his tenure at Memphis before joining the 49ers.
Young is a graduate of Central College (Iowa), where he was a student strength and conditioning coach and also gained experience at Iowa. In addition to his bachelor’s degree from Central, he holds a master’s degree from Memphis. Young is also an NSCA Certified Strength and Conditioning Specialist and a USA Weightlifting Level 1 Sport Performance Coach.
