Chris Johnson was told that Bryan Carrington was in Forney, Texas and about to drive to the airport and catch his flight back to Arizona when he came across the Aledo product's Hudl film. Apparently, former TCU and Texas assistant canceled his flight then and there to drive 90 minutes to meet with the junior cornerback.

Johnson was just over a month removed from an all-district season in which he helped the Bearcats win the Class 5A Division I state championship. Still, the accolades thus far had yet to translate to fervent college attention. The 6-foot-1 corner held two offers from Grambling State and Louisville. Now, he sat in his head coach's office at 8 a.m., expecting a household name in Texas recruiting to walk through the door. Sure, Carrington is now the defensive backs coach at Arizona State, but he's a Lone Star man through and through.

After serving as a recruiting assistant for the University of Houston while working on a degree in sports administration from 2015-16, Carrington followed Tom Herman to Austin to serve as Texas's director of recruiting for roughly four years. There, he became a dominant force in Texas, helping ink 11 of the state's top 15 recruits in 2018, building a national top-three ranked class in 2019 and earning the commitment of future first-round draft pick Bijan Robinson in 2020.

He could've coasted on his recruiting credentials and continued to ink top classes. Carrington, however, is someone who constantly moves the goalposts. He'd grown up playing NCAA football and building teams on the game's dynasty mode, and one day he wanted to run his own team for real. That's why he jumped to USC in 2021 and then to TCU in 2022 for analyst roles, then signed on to Arizona State as an on-field assistant. 

"I remember when I first left Texas and went to USC, (head coach) Clay Helton was like, ‘What do you want to be?’" Carrington said. "I said, ‘Look, I want to be a position coach. When I’m a position coach, I want to coordinate. When I’m a coordinator, I want to be the head coach. When I’m the head coach, I want to be the president of the United States.'”

But hiring Carrington was part of a calculated move by new Arizona State head coach Kenny Dillingham. Despite being the youngest head man in the FBS at 33 years old, Dillingham had the foresight to acknowledge he couldn't just recruit Arizona. He needed to open a recruiting pipeline in the state of Texas. In addition to Carrington, he'd hired the 28-year-old Ra'Shaad Samples as wide receivers coach. Samples and Carrington are best friends, a relationship that started when Carrington helped recruit Samples, then playing wide receiver, to transfer to Houston. The two worked together at Texas and for a couple months at TCU before Samples joined Sean McVay's staff for a season serving as running backs coach for the Los Angeles Rams.

Samples, the son of legendary Duncanville head coach Reginald Samples, and Carrington form a dynamic team. Carrington characterizes recruiting as a relay race, and he knows Arizona State will close the gap or increase the lead from a prospect's other top schools whenever he passes the baton to Samples.

"A lot of times, it’s kind of like on autopilot," Carrington said. "The brand that we’ve made for ourselves kind of recruits for itself now so that when we’re talking to kids and they fall within the network and the rolodex that we know, we get those endorsements. We get those stamps of approval from a lot of people in the know in the state of Texas."

Carrington, and the all-important brand, had now canceled his flight and driven over an hour to Aledo to offer Chris Johnson at his high school. When Johnson later received offers from Oregon, Utah and SMU, he didn't forget what that morning meant to him. He committed to Arizona State on July 4, becoming the sixth prospect from the state to pledge to the Sun Devils since February, the same amount of Texas high school football recruits they'd mustered in four recruiting cycles from 2019-22. All six commits were recruited by either Samples or Carrington. The Texas to Tempe, Arizona, campaign is in full swing.

"To be so dedicated, Coach Samp and Coach BC, with recruiting the state of Texas, it means a lot," Johnson said. "With all three of the DBs committed there coming from Texas, it just proves how bad they really want to get Texas to Tempe.”

Lewisville High School's Tony-Louis Nkuba is one of three cornerbacks from Texas in Arizona State's 2024 class. He's also been familiar with Carrington for much longer. Carrington kept in touch with Nkuba throughout the 2022 season after the corner showed out at a TCU camp. Then, when he got hired at Arizona State, Nkuba posted about a scholarship offer from ASU on Carrington's first day on the job.

Nkuba and Johnson have known of each other competing in the DFW area. There's even a picture of them standing together as top five performers at one of the area's top 100 camps. They've grown their relationship since committing together and text weekly with Dickinson corner Rodney Bimage Jr. The three are now doing their own work to strengthen the Texas pipeline. Arizona State has secondary commits from the state of Texas in their 2025 class, corner Joseph Smith from Spring and safety Jospeh Albright from Houston Westfield.

"It feels good because I know what type of football Texas is," Nkuba said. "So I know what type of players should be coming and playing with me. I feel like we’re getting good players.”

Dillingham wanted to carve a Texas footprint when he was hired in November 2022. The goal just increased in importance now that Arizona State, Arizona, Utah and Colorado are set to join the Big 12 beginning in 2024. Nkuba and Johnson both said they initially committed with the belief Arizona State would stay in the Pac-12. They're both excited to play football against colleges from Texas and in a conference that they perceive has better competition. 

There are plenty of Texas ties binding the four new Big 12 converts. Colorado head coach Deion Sanders was the offensive coordinator at Trinity Christian School and helped compile a 42–3 record with three consecutive TAPPS state titles behind the arm of his son, Shedeur, Colorado's new starting quarterback. Utah has 15 former Texas high school football players, headlined by former Duncanville star Ja'Quinden Jackson at running back. Arizona secondary coach Duane Akina is familiar with the state from when he coached at the University of Texas from 2001-13.

But none is better positioned than Arizona State. After taking a whopping 30 transfers in the 2023 cycle with a new coaching staff now lead the remnants of the Pac-12 Conference with 17 players from Texas. They've made it a point to recruit the state by adding Carrington and Samples to the staff, and now they're joining a conference that'll hold four Texas teams. Texas to Tempe is no gimmick. It's morphing into a program mantra.

"The world just got a lot smaller concerning Texas kids and Arizona State," Carrington said.