Indiana football is making a key addition to its staff, as sources confirm the program is set to bring on Tyson Brown as its new head strength and conditioning coach. Brown steps into the role following the departure of Derek Owings, who recently left Bloomington to take over as head strength coach at Tennessee.
For Indiana, this isn’t just a personnel move-it’s a foundational hire. Strength and conditioning is the heartbeat of a college football program, and Brown brings a deep, well-traveled résumé that signals Indiana is serious about building from the ground up.
Brown was most recently hired in December as the senior associate head coach and director of football strength and conditioning at Colorado State, where he joined forces with head coach Jim Mora. That reunion followed a stint at UConn, where Brown held the head strength and conditioning role under Mora from 2024 to 2025.
But Brown’s experience doesn’t stop there. From 2020 to 2023, he led the strength and conditioning program at Mississippi State, overseeing player development in the rugged SEC. Prior to that, he was at Washington State, first as the lead strength assistant from 2014 to 2017, then returning as head strength coach from 2018 to 2020 after a brief stop at Elon.
That Elon stint in 2018 came under then-head coach Curt Cignetti, now the man in charge at Indiana. Brown’s return to Pullman later that year filled a vacancy left when Washington State’s previous strength coach departed for the NFL. That kind of trust-being brought back to lead a program’s physical development-speaks volumes about Brown’s reputation in the coaching community.
His coaching journey also includes time at South Florida in 2013, where he served as associate director of strength and conditioning. There, he worked with both football and volleyball, showcasing his versatility and leadership across multiple sports. Before that, he spent two seasons as an assistant strength coach at Washington (2011-2012), interned with the Houston Texans in 2010, and got his start as a graduate assistant at Baylor from 2009 to 2010.
Across his career, Brown has been part of coaching staffs that have appeared in nine bowl games-experience that matters when you're tasked with preparing athletes for the grind of a full season and the physical demands of postseason play.
Brown’s football roots run deep. He played at Sioux Falls, where he earned a bachelor’s degree in exercise science and was part of two NAIA national championship teams in 2006 and 2008.
Those squads were coached by none other than Kalen DeBoer, a former Indiana assistant and now Alabama’s head coach. Brown later earned his master’s from California University of Pennsylvania.
For Indiana, this hire is about more than filling a vacancy-it’s about setting a tone. Tyson Brown brings a wealth of experience, a proven track record of player development, and ties to key figures in the coaching world. With Cignetti assembling his vision for the Hoosiers, Brown will be a central figure in shaping the physical identity of this team moving forward.