As a senior year in 1951, Coleman was selected as the Most Valuable Player on the undefeated 1951 Michigan State Spartans football team and received the Governor of Michigan Award. In presenting Coleman with the award, Michigan Governor Mennen Williams said, "A couple of those tackles I saw you make in the Notre Dame game were enough to convince me." Coleman was credited with being the key to the Michigan State offense in 1951. Line coach Duffy Daugherty pointed to a Coleman blocks in the Marquette game as "one of the greatest plays by an offensive lineman that I've ever seen." According to Daugherty, Coleman was knocked to the ground, but got up, caught and passed the Michigan State ball carrier (Leroy Bolden) and "still made the key block that let him go for 33 yards." Daugherty later credited Coleman with "changing the concept of offensive football at Michigan State" and added, "He gave me a lesson which made football a winning proposition at the school for ten of the next twelve years." Daugherty went even further in 1954 with the following words of praise for Coleman:"If you want to pick a player on the basis of how close to perfection he is in whatever position he plays, I'll say Coleman was the greatest."