For more than a week, Gharin Stansbury’s main contact with ASU had been through Twitter direct messages. ASU defensive line coach Robert Rodriguez had been talking with him through DMs for a little over a week before the 6-foot-5, 220-pound linebacker from Louisiana called Rodriguez who handed him an offer on Wednesday.

“He was just telling me how great the program is,” Stansbury said Rodriguez told him, “and all the things the ASU program could do for me as a player and as a college student.”

The Sun Devils offer is the 14th total and second power-five opportunity for Stansbury so far. While he wouldn’t say that it’s an end-all-be-all that he plays at a power-five program, he admitted it’s more important to him to find the school that can best develop him as a player and a young man.

The Sun Devils have the ‘Pro model.’ They have coaches with experience both playing in the league and coaching the greatest players in the world. Speak to Rodriguez about development, and he could talk for four hours like he was giving a filibuster on the house floor of congress.

Rodriguez left his “dream job” as the Minnesota Vikings assistant defensive line coach to work under Herm Edwards. To some, an NFL to college move would be a downgrade. But Rodriguez looked at it as a chance to implement his wisdom on the ground floor of a young kid’s football journey, helping them master the technique that NFL franchises look for come draft day.

And, already, Rodriguez has been sharing with Stansbury tweets of his former Viking players -- namely Danielle Hunter -- and how their near-perfect technique helped them excel on Sundays. The message? “He could develop me into a player like that,” Stansbury said.

“It’s a great relationship. He tells me different stuff about being a d-lineman…We’re still getting to know each other,” Stansbury said of Rodriguez, adding his admiration for ASU’s ‘Pro model.’ “It’s a big factor because the NFL, that’s the top level. So they have a great coaching staff with NFL players.”

Though listed as a three-star outside linebacker -- and the 37th-ranked player in Louisiana -- it seems Rodriguez and the Sun Devils would like to see Stansbury as a defensive lineman should he commit to the Sun Devils. (In high school, he played both linebacker and on the defensive line.)

ASU’s coaching staff has placed an incredible emphasis at beefing up their trenches, with co-defensive coordinator Antonio Pierce going as far to say that the Sun Devils searched the country for every d-lineman taller than 6-foot-4. Stansbury fits that mold, and it wouldn’t be tough to think that he could bulk up from his 220-pound frame.

“(Coach Rodriguez) said he liked my length and my ability to bend on the edge,” Stansbury said. “(Coaches like) my explosive get-off, my length and they say I’m pretty fast … I run like a 4.7(-second 40-yard dash). I’m trying to get it down.”

Stansbury said the four schools recruiting him the hardest are ASU, Tulane, Louisiana, and SMU. While ASU is the obvious outlier, proximity-wise to his home in Franklin, Louisiana, Stansbury admitted that geography wouldn’t play a significant role in his final decision.

And while he wouldn’t prefer committing without visiting his top schools, he said he plans to choose his college prior to his senior year so that he can entirely focus on his final year playing high school football. The virtual tours have been great, he noted but made him a tad anxious to get out to each and see it for himself.

“I feel like you could make a home anywhere. As long as you feel comfortable and there’s a family environment there, you can call it home,” Stansbury said. “ASU is a college town, I saw (a Twitter post) that said they’re the No. 2 ranked college town. It’s a college atmosphere, and it’s probably a great place to be a student.”

But while Tempe’s atmosphere is alluring, it’ll be up to the relationships Stansbury forms with ASU’s coaches that most impact his final decision.

“Just feeling comfortable with the coaching staff,” he said. “They’re (the Sun Devils) are really trying to build a bond. They’re saying that it’s a family environment and (talk about) what they can do for me as a player and develop me.”

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