DALLAS — Ra'Shaad Samples has his arm around his father, Reginald Samples, as the two walk off the field at AT&T Stadium on Dec. 22 after his Duncanville team fell in the Texas Class 6A Division I State Championship to North Shore on a Hail Mary.

Grief, heartbreak and hurt were on their faces as the legendary high school coach fell just one play short of his first state championship.

"Just being here for that game, it broke my heart, obviously," Ra'Shaad told 247Sports on Friday. "I felt so a part of it."

Twenty four hours earlier, the younger Samples wasn't far from where that instant classic would end. Samples was working for Tom Herman at Texas as an assistant wide receivers coach. The Longhorns were preparing for their appearance in the Sugar Bowl, but Samples was back in Dallas to catch another game of his father's, like he's done for his entire life.

Across from him the night before that matchup at a local Pappadeaux wasn't his father, but SMU head coach Sonny Dykes. The son of another Texas coaching legend, Spike Dykes, had just fallen short of a bowl bid in his first season with the Mustangs and spent his December going to dinners with young college coaches.

"I've worked with a million different guys he's worked with at different places, so his name just kept coming up and coming up and coming up," Dykes told 247Sports after practice Friday. “I thought, December is kind of that month where we weren't playing in a bowl game, so I met with several young guys and sat down with them and just trying to plan for the future in case something happened."

Dykes didn't have have an opening on staff and Samples said he wasn't being approached for a position. The pair talked about something near to the former Skyline star's heart, the city of Dallas.

"We just talked about ways to make this city great," Ra'Shaad said. "I know he's passionate about it and it's something that's real and something that he wants to do and I feel the same way."

Little did they know what opportunity would come just eight months later, during which Samples began to flourish as a young coach, something many said he always had in him.