At the time, Mason did not realize that he had just added the Golden Gophers’ career leader in receptions (227) and receiving yardage (3,119). Rather, he wondered whether he was the dumbest coach in the nation, or the smartest.

“You start thinking, What are we seeing in this guy that other people don’t?” said Mason, now an analyst for the Big Ten Network.

The next day, Mason said, he received a call from John Gagliardi, the venerable coach at St. John’s.

“Gosh darnit,” Gagliardi said. “You found him.”

THREE YEARS AGO, Decker realized he had been lying to himself. He always expected to remain a bachelor until he retired. He was too driven, too focused, too invested in his career to worry about anyone else. Then, through a mutual friend, he met Jessie.

At the time, she was living in Nashville, intending to move to Los Angeles. He was training in Arizona. They chatted over the phone for a month before he visited. Two months later, he asked Jessie, a spitfire and a fervent (and often unfiltered) practitioner of social media, to move to Colorado with him. The relationship progressed faster than those in Cold Spring were accustomed to.

“Now, all of a sudden,” Decker said, “I’m married with a kid.”

Their daughter, Vivianne, was born in March, nine months after their wedding was recorded by E! cameras. Their life — split between Nashville and New Jersey, which he described during his introductory conference call as underrated — is normal, Decker said (relatively speaking). So far, he has delighted the Jets, everyone from Geno Smith to Rex Ryan, with his hands, crisp routes and consistency. Smith called him “a quarterback’s best friend.”

The last time many folks saw him here was April 2013. Decker and his wife flew in to attend the wedding of Zach Johnson, the son of the gym teacher, Mark, and the party doubled as the final exam, eight years later, for a course that Mark Johnson instructed at Rocori.