Taylor Young - Football Coach - Texas Tech Red Raiders

Taylor Young

Title:
Assistant Inside Linebackers Coach

Taylor Young enters his second season on the Texas Tech coaching staff as a defensive quality control coach working with the Red Raider inside linebackers.

Young’s arrival in Lubbock reunited him with many on the Texas Tech staff from his time as a student-athlete at Baylor. Young was one of the Big 12’s most-imposing linebackers over his four-year career, totaling 325 tackles, 39.0 tackles for loss and 15.5 sacks, all while earning All-Big 12 honors three times and also being named Big 12 Defensive Newcomer of the Year by the Associated Press in 2014 and the Defensive MVP of the 2015 Cotton Bowl.

Young, whose last season coincided with head coach Joey McGuire’s arrival in Waco as an assistant coach, remains one of the top tacklers in Baylor history as he still ranks third in career tackles for loss, fourth for both career solo tackles and sacks and tied for eighth in total tackles. Young made 40 career starts at linebacker for the Bears before being invited to training camp with the Arizona Cardinals after completing his collegiate career.

Young was able to help pass along that same wisdom during his first season with the Red Raiders as inside linebacker Jacob Rodriguez earned All-Big 12 first team honors as one of the top tacklers in college football. Rodriguez, only the third Red Raider in program history to garner All-Big 12 first team honors, recorded 127 tackles on the season, ranking third in the FBS for the category, all while finishing as one of the country’s top contributors to takeaways.

This is Young’s third coaching stint at the collegiate level as he was previously a graduate assistant for Baylor during the 2019-20 seasons as well as a quality control assistant at North Texas for the 2021 campaign. Young assisted the linebacker room at both schools, while also contributing to North Texas’ special teams units during his lone season in Denton.

Like many members of McGuire’s staff, Young also has experience at the high school ranks as he served as the special teams coordinator and linebackers coach at Richardson High School in the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex the past two seasons.

Young began his coaching career after earning his undergraduate degree in education from Baylor in 2016.