Michigan football makes contact with MSU transfer portal star
Michigan football has not been shy about turning over every stone to improve its roster through the transfer portal. The contact has extended all the way to former Michigan State Spartans wide receiver Keon Coleman, who is one of the top players available after defecting from East Lansing.
Coleman named Michigan among the 59 schools in contact with him since entering the portal, per On3’s Hayes Fawcett. At this point, it remains unclear what level of interest each side has in a potential match. It would be premature to call Michigan a threat to land him at this point given SEC connections, but the contact made is interesting for a U-M squad with a loaded roster.
Coleman, a Louisiana native and a four-star recruit in the 2021 class, is currently the third-best available player in the portal, according to On3’s rankings. In his two seasons at Michigan State, he hauled in 65 receptions for 848 yards and eight touchdowns. Coleman had 58 catches for 798 yards and 7 touchdowns last year.
Oddly enough, the best performance of Coleman’s career to this point came last year in Ann Arbor with five catches for 155 yards and the only Spartan touchdown in a dominant U-M 29-7 victory. Coleman is one of two high-profile transfers to enter the portal out of MSU in the last few weeks, joining last year’s starting quarterback Peyton Thorne. Thorne committed to Auburn on May 5.
Michigan feels good about its one-two punch at the top of the depth chart in graduate Cornelius Johnson and senior Roman Wilson with a promising batch of sophomores behind them in Tyler Morris and Darrius Clemons. However, the 6-4, 210-pound Coleman would go a long way in solidifying a roster with national championship aspirations.
Despite the contact, On3’s JD PicKell opined this week that the spot with the close-to-home LSU Tigers and head coach Brian Kelly might make the most sense.
“Keon Coleman went to high school about an hour from Baton Rouge,” PicKell said in a video breakdown potential landing spots for the receiver. “I think this is a school that we need to watch very, very closely. You’d imagine LSU will be competitive in the NIL landscape. LSU would love to stack him with Malik Nabers and have another threat for Jayden Daniels. Remember Jaray Jenkins, their other big-bodied wide receiver, he’s gone to the league. So Keon Coleman can be a guy that racks up production and is kind of a safety blanket for Jayden Daniels as he continues to progress pushing the ball downfield.”
As of now, Coleman has visits set to Florida State and Auburn. We will see if his contact with Michigan goes anywhere. A top-59 list of schools is quite a bit to trim from, but one wonders what the phone call between U-M and Coleman sounded like.
