Colts at Texans, 4:35 p.m. Saturday, ABC/ESPN

INDIANAPOLIS – He is the most improbable star in this most improbable of seasons for the Indianapolis Colts. Check his background. Learn his story. It’s a wonder cornerback Pierre Desir is in the United States, much less in the NFL, or here in Indianapolis. It’s a wonder he plays the position he does, a position he plays so well that he will draw the assignment that could determine whether the Colts advance in the 2018 NFL playoffs by beating the Houston Texans on Saturday.

With his background, his story, his pedigree, Pierre Desir has no business defending superstar Texans receiver DeAndre Hopkins on Saturday. But then, that assignment is one of the easier parts of his story, a story that spans from Haiti to St. Louis to one small school you’ve never heard of, and then to another. The story takes Desir into a basement filled with excrement, into an office where he wears a tie and answers phones, all of this a prelude to the most unlikely invitation at the 2014 NFL combine.

There it is. That’s the word that describes Pierre Desir: unlikely.

He is the Colts’ unlikely cornerback.

The Division II Richard Sherman

Forget it, that’s it. Pierre Desir was going to quit football.

Could you blame him? Nothing had worked out as planned, not a damn thing, some of that his own fault. After immigrating to St. Louis at age 4, his parents fleeing the third-world conditions of Haiti – it was in America where he saw his first toilet – Desir learned he had a gift for the American sport of football. He was recruited by the likes of Michigan State, but failed to qualify academically.

This is a smart guy, too. Not just smart enough to reach the rather humble requirements of NCAA Division I, but smart. Talk to him. Get his story. You’ll see. But he was working through high school, fast food mainly, because his parents didn’t have the money to put him through college. By the time he realized he could have his college covered by a football scholarship, it was too late. Didn’t qualify. Couldn’t get the standardized test score he needed.

“No excuses,” Desir says. “I only have myself to blame.”

No, that’s not when he quit football. That was just the start of a bizarre journey that took him to Division II Washburn University in Topeka, Kan., where he was a receiver, one of those zany athletes who are so good in high school it’s a wonder they don’t score every time they touch the ball. Desir was dunking a basketball at age 13, had broken the long jump record in his first meet of high school and averaged nearly 40 yards per kickoff return, but Washburn coaches redshirted him his first season, then moved him to cornerback. That turned out OK; Desir intercepted 12 passes in two years, climbing to third on the school’s career interception list.

Desir already was a family man, a father at 16, a husband at 20. During that second season at Washburn in 2010, he and his wife, Morgan, had a second child. Red tape and rules being what they are, Desir’s scholarship at Washburn made him ineligible for government benefits to help pay for child care while Morgan worked. Desir transferred to a school back home, an NAIA school transitioning to NCAA Division II called Lindenwood in suburban St. Louis, so family could help with the kids. All he needed was for Washburn to release him from his scholarship so he could get that aid from Lindenwood, and he’d be off and running toward his dream of …

Washburn didn’t release him from his scholarship.

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A cornerback like Desir, so athletic and so large at 6-1 and 200 pounds, one already being called “the Division II Richard Sherman,” doesn’t come along often, and never at a school like Washburn. No scholarship release.

“I was stunned,” he says.

And ineligible to play that first year at Lindenwood in 2011. How did it feel, having plans and dreams, only to have them pulled away? Like being knee-deep in excrement.

Which was about to happen to Desir, come to think of it.

Can he stop DeAndre Hopkins again?

Hustle and heart … sets us apart.

That’s the Desir family motto, and there I’m being literal.

“My wife came up with that,” Desir was telling me the other day in Nashville, minutes after the Colts had beaten the Tennessee Titans 33-17 to reach the playoffs, setting up this showdown between Desir and Texans receiver DeAndre Hopkins in Houston on Saturday.

Wait. Hang on. How did we get to Saturday? You still don’t know what happened in 2011, when Desir spent his days working for a temp agency. Janitorial work, mainly, including the time an apartment complex flooded and needed cleaning and Desir found himself up to his knees in brownish water, the smell telling him exactly where that color had come from. He spent his evenings in a jacket and tie, answering phones for Verizon until 2 a.m. That was his life – well, that and being a husband and father of two young kids and going to Lindenwood every morning at 6 a.m. to lift weights with players who weren’t his teammates yet – when he snapped.

“That’s it,” he told Morgan one day. “I quit.”

“No,” she told her husband. “The NFL is your dream. Chase it.”

Hustle and heart … sets us apart.

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Desir survived that year, and the payoff came in 2012 when he intercepted nine passes and broke up 18 to set up a senior season that was almost comical. Teams weren’t throwing to Desir’s side of the field. Weren’t even running over there. His interceptions dropped from nine to four, his tackles from 60 in 2012 to 33 in 2013, but his NFL stock rose. He wasn’t going to the 2014 NFL Combine out of Lindenwood, let’s not be crazy, but his agent was talking to NFL teams and learning there was a market for the Haitian-born, Division II-bred cornerback.

And then his phone rang.

“It was my agent, telling me I was invited to the combine!” Desir says.

That’s a whole other story. During interviews with the NFL teams at the combine, Desir spent more time talking about Washburn and Lindenwood than Pierre and Desir.

“Over and over, it was: ‘Coming from a small school, do you think you can match up?’” Desir remembers. “I felt like they didn’t respect where I was coming from.”

The rest happened fast. Drafted by the Browns in the fourth round in 2014 and waived in 2016, picked up by the Chargers (twice) and later waived (twice), picked up by the Seahawks and later waived, picked up by the Colts and later …

Shutting down DeAndre Hopkins.

Hey, that’s how it happened. But this being Pierre Desir, the Colts’ unlikely cornerback, it didn’t go according to plan. He spent most of training camp with the first team, but found himself without a single snap on defense in the opener against Cleveland. Desir didn’t become a full-time starter until the ninth game – the Colts were 3-5 – but has become their leading corner during the Colts’ sprint to the postseason.

Desir finished the regular season with 79 tackles, eight passes defensed, two fumbles forced and an interception, and became the guy defensive coordinator Matt Eberflus will use to shadow an opposing No. 1 receiver. Eberflus used Desir that way last month against Hopkins, a player in the middle of a 115-catch, 1,572-yard season, one who had torched the Colts for 10 catches and 169 yards in a Houston victory earlier this season.

On Dec. 9, Hopkins caught four passes for a season-low 36 yards as the Colts snapped Houston’s nine-game winning streak, 24-21.

Hopkins has been on a rampage in the three games since: 10 catches for 170 yards against the Jets, nine for 104 against the Eagles, 12 for 147 against the Jaguars. Can Desir do it again on Saturday?

Unlikely.

But then …

Find IndyStar columnist Gregg Doyel on Twitter: @GreggDoyelStar or at facebook.com/gregg.doyel.