Ty Detmer could have stayed at St. Andrew’s and coached forever at the small Austin private school, but last December he made the decision to leave that personal comfort zone.

So he returned to where he’s almost more comfortable than anywhere else.

Come Saturday, Detmer will launch his collegiate coaching career at BYU, where he was arguably its biggest star ever. To prove it, there’s a bronze statue in a Legacy Hall trophy case he has to walk by each day just to get to his office. He’ll become the third Heisman Trophy winner to coach at the FBS level, following in the footsteps of Florida’s Steve Spurrier and Auburn’s Pat Sullivan.

At 48, this humble, grounded icon of the highest-profile independent school this side of Notre Dame will be calling plays for the Cougars against Arizona as BYU’s new offensive coordinator, at which point some of those BYU fans who have celebrated his homecoming might register some different emotions about him.

"Yeah, they’ve forgotten how I broke Robbie Bosco’s interception record," Detmer joked. "There’ll be a few more eyes on me here than at St. Andrew’s."

Some are surprised Detmer hadn’t moved up the coaching ladder earlier. Former BYU head coach Bronco Mendenhall, who left after last season to take the Virginia job, had conversations with him. Detmer declined Southern Virginia’s head coaching job offer after his second year at St. Andrew’s. Detmer’s NFL agent constantly hounded him and asked when he’d be ready to make the jump.

Finally, Detmer relented. New BYU head coach Kalani Sitake, a defensive coordinator at Utah and Oregon State and a former Cougars running back who once asked Detmer for an autograph, approached him, and Detmer accepted the job last Christmas Eve. He showed up three days later and rolled up his sleeves.

Eight months later, Detmer’s office is still a mess. The walls are largely barren, although he jokes he’ll "probably bring a deer head in" at some point. His wife, Kim, and two of his four daughters have settled into a rental house about 20 minutes south of Provo, although their Austin home still hasn’t sold.

He desperately misses his Tex-Mex fix at Torchy’s Tacos and Chuy’s in Austin. He often wears his ostrich boots or one of his other 10 pairs of boots to work. He won’t get back to his 1,300-acre "T14" ranch in Freer in South Texas until December, but he’s happy.

"It does feel right," Detmer said over the phone this week. "It’s a place that’s very familiar. The right people, the right place. But I know the scrutiny will start once the season starts."

In a sense, the former quarterback who threw for 121 career touchdowns and more than 15,000 yards and set 59 NCAA records walks past ghosts every day. His own ghost, in fact.

There, front and center behind glass in the football facility, rests his Heisman Trophy, which Detmer won in 1990 as a junior when he upset No. 1 Miami in Provo with 406 yards and three touchdowns. Detmer admits he "usually comes in the back door," so he isn’t thrust among the same BYU fans who have come to worship the school’s only Heisman Trophy winner.

He does get stopped for autographs, but usually by an older crowd.

"All the kids on campus weren’t even born when I was playing," he joked. "When their parents drop them off, they’re the ones who know me."

The same thing happens when Detmer finds himself in recruits’ living rooms and connects with fathers who remember this skinny kid from Texas who showed up at 6 feet and 168 pounds after committing to one of the few schools that liked to pass. That said, BYU’s players are all but awestruck over Detmer. Wideout Nick Kurtz has said they’re "looking at a superstar."

Detmer’s loving dealing with the players and raves about Taysom Hill, the ubiquitous, athletic BYU quarterback who owned Texas and starts his fifth season at age 26. "He’s got a really good football mind," Detmer says.

Detmer, like Texas’ new play-caller, Sterlin Gilbert, whom he met on a recruiting trip to Lake Travis, will call plays from the field so he can communicate face to face. And he’s switching BYU’s spread, fast-paced offense to a more deliberate, pro-style offense that huddles after every play.

And you thought Detmer’s former coach, LaVell Edwards, was revolutionary.

"Maybe not every play, but most of the time we’ll huddle," Detmer said. "I like the huddle. There’s a lot of things going on in there with team camaraderie and talking about situations. If you get 90 plays, your chances of scoring goes up, but it puts your defense on the field more. To me, it’s a little bit relative."

He even enjoys recruiting.

"It’s been kind of fun," he said. "I’ve got nothing but positive things to say about BYU. Or else, I wouldn’t be back."