MK Young’s rise at Vanderbilt didn’t start with the 2025 season, and it didn’t really begin the first time he stepped onto campus, either. For him, the story stretches back through a year away from football, a return that brought tears at FirstBank Stadium and, eventually, a breakout campaign that made him one of the more recognizable players on the roster.
Now, in fall camp, the routine looks different than it did when he first arrived. Young goes through his prep, gets a few reps, and watches a Vanderbilt backfield that is still sorting itself out around the team’s unproven running backs. That’s a sharp contrast from the early days of his time in Nashville, when he was the one trying to earn those same practice reps and prove he could help win games.
The patience paid off in 2025. Young posted 414 rushing yards, scored six touchdowns, added 133 receiving yards on 14 catches and played in all 13 games as Vanderbilt finished with a program-record 10 wins.
His role wasn’t the biggest on the team, but his collection of explosive plays made him impossible to ignore. He broke loose for a 62-yard run against Virginia Tech, a 60-yard run against Georgia State and an 80-yard burst against Missouri.
That kind of production helped push his yards per carry to 9.0.
Young isn’t interested in hearing that the number was just a product of a few long runs. He said he wants to make the most of every chance he gets with the ball.
“All I know is that any time we get the ball, and we get the privilege to carry a ball, I want to try to make the best of it,” Young said. “I take very much pride in that. So when I'm blessed to be able to carry that ball, as much as I can do with it, that's what I want to do is make explosive plays, and I'm hoping to-I will have more this season.”
That mindset fits the player Vanderbilt believes it has in Young now: a versatile back who can catch the ball out of the backfield, support first-time starting quarterback and work alongside Sedrick Alexander again. The pass-catching piece, in particular, appears to have taken a step forward.
It also fits the way Young talks about what comes next. He said he won’t leave anything on the field in 2026, and that starts with the way he studies film and reacts to the extra yards other backs fail to squeeze out. He wants to run hard, finish plays and avoid wasting opportunities.
Young’s journey to this point included more than football. After committing to Vanderbilt in the transfer portal following 191 rushing yards on 28 carries at New Mexico State in 2023, he missed the entire 2024 season for a still-undisclosed reason.
During that year away, he returned to Midland, Texas, worked at a church and attended seminary. It was rewarding, he said, but it also left him wanting to be back on the field.
When that return finally came, the emotion hit hard. A year later, the setting is far more familiar, but the feeling hasn’t gone away.
“Normal, no,” Young said Wednesday at Vanderbilt’s fall camp. “Oftentimes we get so caught up in like ‘he blessed me that year, he blessed me last year.
It's all over the same again. I'll probably cry again just because I'm just so blessed and so humbled to be a part of this great university.
I think we take so much of a small things and small details in life for granted, and we think that they're just supposed to be able to come to us, but every year's a blessing.”
Vanderbilt running backs coach Ghaali Muhammad-Lankford sees that gratitude matched by work. He pointed to the way Young finishes runs in practice, saying that effort shows up on every rep.
“The thing about MK is that he's a worker,” Muhammad-Lankford said, “And, so if you watch practice, one thing that you would notice is the way that he finishes. I tell guys all the time that there's not a drill that I have to simulate making that safety miss and running into the end zone. And so that finish is critical for us, and so we take great pride in it, and he finishes every rep.”
Young believes he belongs in the best running back room in the country with Alexander. If that’s going to hold true, he knows he has to keep matching that confidence with production. Based on what Vanderbilt saw in 2025, there’s reason to think he will.
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Vanderbilts Offense Faces A Big Camp Question As Coleman Keeps Flashing
Late in fall camp, Vanderbilts open practice offered a familiar training-camp split: the defense looked sharp, the offense had to grind through some uneven stretches, and one receiver kept making the sort of plays that stand out even in a crowded practice setting. Coleman continues to flash big-play ability, giving the Commodores at least one obvious offensive bright spot as the calendar creeps toward the season.
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Sedrick Alexander Is Giving Vanderbilt A Dangerous New Backfield Weapon
Sedrick Alexander has given Vanderbilt a different kind of threat out of the backfield, and it starts with the way he sees himself as a receiver. The sophomore running back has leaned into the pass-catching part of his game since arriving in Nashville, pointing back to his days as a wide receiver and to the versatility that makes him more than just another runner in the room.
His confidence has also been matched by support from inside the locker room, with teammate Makhilyn Young among those praising Alexanders hands. For Vanderbilt, that kind of dual-threat profile matters because it changes how defenses have to play the Commodores, especially when Alexander is on the field and the ball can come his way as easily as it can go to any traditional receiver. [Read more 🡒]