The fridge in the Coleman house is always empty. It's empty even after Mom treks to Costco four times a week for the bulk supply of groceries. But the supplies are constantly raided by 900 pounds worth of triplets fueling their Division I football dreams. They don't grab a water bottle; they swipe three with one hand.

Offensive tackle twins Jordan (6-foot-5, 340) and Devin (6-foot-5, 320), along with fraternal triplet defensive tackle Isaiah (6-foot-2, 260), are rising seniors at Cedar Hill who each have Power Four football offers. They're leaders on one of the state’s most storied programs. Jordan is the No.82 overall player in the DCTF Hot 100 with 18 total offers, including Texas, Oklahoma and Florida. Devin isn’t far behind at 13, while Isaiah picked up his first two with Texas Tech and UTSA. College football is a life-changing accomplishment; they’ve only accepted the reality since entering high school.

When they were around six years old, their father, Donald, placed them on a peewee team coached by their older cousin, LaMaze “MJ” Jones. It took less than a year for the triplets to agree that they hated it. Demetrius, the triplets' mentor and caregiver, says they were uncoordinated, falling all over the place. Isaiah and Devin admit they were also lazy.

“We tried to quit every single year,” Isaiah said.

But Donald, Demetrius and MJ held firm. The family village refused to give up on the triplets, teaching them if they were going to do something, they needed to work to be the best at it. The boys didn’t grow up with a backyard, so Demetrius used to take them to the park to run the hills.

“My dad was more like, ‘Y’all aren’t about to be 6-foot-5 sitting around the house,’” Devin said.

Once they reached high school, a new motivator took over - older brother Jaydon Rolen. Rolen, who graduated in 2023, was a First-Team All-District honoree as a senior left tackle, the same position as Jordan. Jaydon never played college football, capping out at 6-foot-1, but his example molded the triplets into the college prospects they are today. 

Jaydon taught Jordan everything he knew at left tackle, and Devin said that ahead of the 2024 season, teammates are looking up to Jordan in the same way Jordan used to follow Jaydon. Jaydon was the one who convinced Devin to move from defensive tackle his sophomore year to offensive line his junior year, a move that resulted in a recruiting bump. 

While Isaiah says most confuse him for the youngest triplet since he’s not 6-foot-5, Jaydon’s demeanor as the oldest brother influenced him now as the oldest triplet. Jaydon always knew how to correct him, such as entering sophomore year when Isaiah was also moved to the offensive line. Isaiah was willing to move to JV to stay at his natural defensive tackle spot, scared he couldn’t compete on the other side of the ball. Jaydon insisted he remain on varsity and worked through the spring and summer on his footwork. Entering his senior year, Isaiah is willing to line up everywhere from defensive tackle to defensive end, tight end and H-back for Cedar Hill.

“Because of my older brother, now I look at it as, ‘Football is football,’” Isaiah said. “If you really love football, you’ll be willing to play any position no matter how hard it gets.”

All these forces in their lives that pushed them not to quit when the game got hard materialized into Cedar Hill’s 2023 run. The 2–8 record in 2022 was the program’s worst season in two decades. The team carried a burden and was buckling under the weight, verbally sparring with each other and threatening to leave.

Head coach Nick Ward was hired after 2022 and established a new offseason regimen. Every player was required to run track. The Cedar Hill players would do lunges around the entire track - 400 yards worth - and then run 10 110-yard sprints. The 2023 season started much like the last, sitting at 1–4 by the first week of October. But Ward developed a new mantra - take the lesson, not the loss. Starting quarterback Anthony Edwards returned before the Mansfield game, and the Longhorns won four of their final five games to make the playoffs.

In warmups of the first round game against Pflugerville Weiss, the defense ripped off their shirts in the 40-degree weather. When they insisted on keeping them off despite Ward’s pleas, the coach told them they better win, or there’d be hell to pay. It was a sign that Cedar Hill was confident. They’d navigated a schedule that pitted them against Southlake Carroll, Duncanville and DeSoto. On the first play of the Weiss game, defensive end Zhaiylen Scott sacked the quarterback by throwing the left tackle into him. The Longhorns won that game 62-0 and then went four rounds deep in the playoffs, losing to eventual state champion DeSoto.

The Coleman triplets are focal points of a Cedar Hill team returning many contributors from the turnaround season. Ward describes the brothers as big teddy bears, and as seniors, he’s convincing them that it’s okay to be a little mean on the field and in workouts.

The Colemans play on a 7-on-7 team outside the school for fun with a bunch of linemen from the area, including DeSoto offensive lineman Byron Washington and defensive end Keylan Abrams, as well as Duncanville’s Kevin Ford Jr. While Ward watched the game, he noticed even while the linemen were horsing around that the DeSoto and Duncanville guys had an edge about them. A nastiness that Cedar Hill was missing when they played them last year. So Ward pulled the triplets into his office later that week and told a story from playing at the University of Miami in the late 90s.

The Hurricanes were stacked with future NFL stars, but Ward swears KC Jones was the baddest dude on the team. Miami’s team was predominantly Black, and they used to have a boom box radio blaring hip-hop in the pregame locker room. But sometimes Jones, a white offensive lineman from Midland, Texas, would switch the radio to a heavy metal grunge station and sit at his locker bobbing his head. 

“When he felt like listening to his music, not Ray Lewis, not Kenard Lang or Kenny Holmes, our two first-round ends, not any of them said anything,” Ward said. “In fact, what they did was, ‘Hey man, don’t touch that radio. KC’s going to kick your ass.’” 

The Colemans are learning to let a little KC Jones into their personality when working out with teammates in the offseason. Ward made Devin and Jordan line leaders during offseason workouts. If a player messes up a drill, the line leader and the offender must go to a separate station to flip weight plates or walk with them raised above their heads. Ward noticed Jordan going to the station four times in one practice before he pulled him aside to ask why he kept going to flip weights. Jordan responded that his line kept messing up.

“I guess you like doing this,” Ward said.

A senior cornerback who’d moved into the program had the bad luck of doing the drill incorrectly immediately after Ward challenged Jordan. The teddy bear snapped. He was tired of his teammates making him do extra work.

The senior cornerback didn’t mess up again the rest of practice.

The Coleman brothers don’t plan on 2024 being their last football season together. They all want to attend the same college. Ward remembers when a Power Four recruiter sat down with Devin and Jordan and then had Devin leave the room so he could talk to Jordan alone. Ward told the coach he’d just lost them. If you get one twin, you get both.

But the dream of playing college football together doesn’t change that Isaiah is three inches shorter and 50 pounds lighter than Jordan and Devin. He has two offers, but Jordan and Devin have offers to schools he doesn’t – yet. That’s why Ward and the staff are harder on Isaiah than Jordan and Devin. As a senior, he can prove to college scouts he can compete at the same schools as his bigger, younger brothers.

“Are you going to hold your brothers back from getting what they deserve?” Ward asks him. “Or, will you work hard enough to get what they have?”

Comparison is the root of anxiety, and Isaiah comparing himself to his brothers would blind him to all he’s accomplished on his own. Demetrius made it a point growing up to give the triplets separate rewards, such as a trip to Braum’s for good grades, so they’d understand they couldn’t always get what the other brother got. Their blessings were theirs alone. Any college opportunity is a chance for a better future, whether double-digit offers or a handful.  

“I don’t think that their start is as good and is going to be as bright as their end,” Demetrius said.

DCTF has updated this story to include the Coleman triplets' father, Donald. While the brothers live with Demetrius and their biological mother, Ashley, Donald has been present throughout their football journey.