Zach Higginbotham is a Sport Science Director with over ten years of experience in Division I college football, having worked across the Big Ten, Pac-12, and SEC conferences. His work sits at the intersection of strength and conditioning, performance innovation, data analytics, return-to-play, and other sports science initiatives—translating complex performance data into decisions that coaches can actually use on the field. Recently, Zach served as Director of Sport Science at the University of Michigan Football, where he created the program’s first full-time sports science department from scratch. Before Michigan, he held applied science, return-to-play, and strength conditioning roles at California-Berkeley and Ole Miss, among other programs. There, he developed individualized reconditioning protocols and started cross-departmental sports science initiatives while still working as a full-time strength and conditioning coach. Zach holds a Master of Science in Sports Rehabilitation & Sport Science from Logan University and a Bachelor of Science in Exercise Physiology from Marshall University, where he also competed as a Division I athlete. His philosophy is built on one core principle: the data you collect should change what you do. If it doesn’t, you’re collecting it for the wrong audience.
