Castle Pines receiver Jackson Coleman commits to Notre Dame over rivals

Castle Pines wide receiver Jackson Coleman turned a fast-moving recruiting push into one of Notre Dame’s biggest early wins in the 2027 class, choosing the Fighting Irish over Oregon, Stanford, Cal and Northwestern after a recruitment that lasted less than three weeks from offer to commitment.

Coleman announced his decision Monday morning, becoming Notre Dame commitment No. 13 in the 2027 cycle and the school’s first wide receiver pledge. The Irish beat back a national list that also included Auburn, Miami, Michigan and Vanderbilt, a strong measure of how heavily major programs valued the Valor Christian sophomore from Douglas County.

Notre Dame offered Coleman on April 16, one day after Irish recruiting director Carter Auman visited his high school. Coleman made his first trip to South Bend seven days later, when he was on campus for Blue-Gold Game weekend. By the time he committed, scheduled official visits to Northwestern on May 29 and Oregon on June 5 were off the table.

For Notre Dame, the pick mattered beyond landing another prospect. 247Sports had Coleman as a three-star recruit and the No. 110 wide receiver nationally, while Notre Dame was ranked No. 5 in the composite class rankings at the time. Landing Coleman also gave the Irish an early pass-catcher in a cycle where they had made a rapid late push to close the gap on Oregon, which had been viewed as the front-runner for much of the process.

Coleman said Notre Dame fit who he is because of its academic values and football program. That balance resonated with Valor Christian coach Mike Sanford Jr., who described Coleman as an “Ivy League-type student” with about a 4.0 GPA. Sanford knows the Irish program well, having coached there as offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach in 2015 and 2016, and his family ties to South Bend ran even deeper through his father, Mike Sanford Sr., who was on the Notre Dame staff in 1997 and 1998.

The football case is just as strong. Coleman is listed at 6-foot-3 and 185 pounds by 247Sports, though other reports placed him at 6-foot-4 and 205. He ran a 4.57 in the 40-yard dash at The Opening in 2025 and has backed that up with track speed, clocking 10.75 seconds in the 100 meters in his second track meet and 10.67 at the Colorado 5A state meet as a sophomore.

On the field, Coleman broke out as a junior in 2025 with 45 catches for 975 yards and nine touchdowns in 13 games, after 18 receptions for 296 yards and five scores as a sophomore. Andrew Ivins of 247Sports described him as a tall, over-the-top receiver with strong vertical ability and contested-catch skills, projecting him as a multi-year Power Four contributor with early special teams value.

Coleman’s commitment also reflects the level of football being built in Douglas County and at Valor Christian, one of Colorado’s most consistent talent producers. A Castle Pines sophomore drawing Notre Dame, Oregon and Stanford says as much about Coleman’s ceiling as it does about the pipeline his local program keeps sending to national powers.