Michael Coats Jr.

Michael Coats Jr., who has two sisters, grew up in central Mississippi with his father (Michael Coats Sr.) and mother (Latisha Steele). He played baseball, basketball and football in childhood but stopped playing football after Pop Warner. He continued playing basketball when he arrived at Biloxi High School, but he didn’t play any sports his junior and senior years. He was working at a local arcade after graduating from high school when he saw a flier for football tryouts at East Central (Miss.) Community College. Despite having bare-bones football experience, he made the team in 2020 and learned both cornerback and safety. After the 2022 season, he committed to Nevada, where he had a productive two years, including an All-MWC 2024 season. He entered the portal and transferred to West Virginia in 2025, for his sixth season. An unlikely longshot, Coats has gone from not playing high school football to trying out at the junior college level and now being on the doorstep of the NFL. Though undersized in his height and build, he matches up well with receivers because of his athleticism. He is quick at the snap to mirror, turn and match routes with speed, up and down the field. He swarms throws and puts himself in position for on-ball production. He needs to learn how to trust his technique over grabbing, but he plays with a short memory and bounces back quickly. He is a competitive tackler and limits misses. Overall, Coats’ lack of size will be more noticeable versus NFL talent, but he is an instinctual, twitchy athlete with the toughness to compete for a nickel role once in an NFL camp.