Diego Pavia is a Bama-killing Vanderbilt legend and Vandy is a college football lesson

As I sat in the McGugin Center at Vanderbilt last month and listened to Diego Pavia talk about how he talked about turning down significant amounts of money at Nevada to instead play his final college season at Vanderbilt, a twinge of compassion came over me.

“That will come when I go to the NFL,” Pavia said of the money at the time. “This is my dream goal. This was my best opportunity to do that, the best way for me to get there.”

This seemed to be a misunderstanding of his own boundaries. Now it sounds like an understatement. Tell me that this folk hero who just put 40 on No. 1 Alabama won’t be a member of the Pro Football Hall of Fame at 30 and won’t be an NFL commissioner at 50.

“Every time he touches the ball, we have a chance!” Lea told SEC Network’s Alyssa Lang in the chaotic moments after Vanderbilt 40, No. 1 Alabama 35, reached the final, the biggest Vanderbilt football victory for about a century, followed by goalposts paraded through the heart of a city that often forgets Vanderbilt football exists.

Give Pavia the ZERO – if you’re a restaurant in Nashville that isn’t at least assembling their entrees at this point, you should be embarrassed. Don’t put limits on what he can do (the official assessment of his NFL hopes, per The athlete Draft expert Dane Brugler said late Saturday that he is not currently considered draft-eligible but is “definitely doing what he needs to do to get noticed.”

And don’t miss the college football lessons he imparts. He is a great player and a great story in this sport, and even after his death, Lea and Vanderbilt will still have a chance because they recognized the need to be different. This is what programs facing persistent talent deficits must do.

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How many coaches wish they had signed Pavia in the offseason instead of the less impressive quarterback they got through the transfer portal? A few, I would imagine, but Pavia’s toughness, skill and dexterity are multiplied in the plan that traveled with him from New Mexico State to Vanderbilt.

This offensive, the baby of Jerry Kill, coordinated by Tim Beck, shares the main role in this surprise phase of the season with Pavia, which is 3-2 with a great chance in front of it. This team could easily be 5-0 and ranked in the top 10 and No. 1 in college football if late defensive mistakes didn’t cause the heartthrobs to fall to Georgia State and Missouri.

Pavia had a few things happen that were all his doing, none bigger than faking a handoff on fourth-and-1, holding back a quick pass for his first covered read, scrambling around and throwing a 36-yard touchdown pass to Junior Sherrill. That made it 30-21 Vanderbilt with 2:53 left in the third quarter, and that’s when you knew Alabama was truly in trouble.

WHAT. A. PLAY pic.twitter.com/1OURMUFi9o

— Vanderbilt Football (@VandyFootball) October 5, 2024

He also did some things that were entirely due to an offense that pushed the boundaries of creativity. The speed option into a shovel pass – a couple of big balls to must-get tight end Eli Stowers – the variety of play-action shots, the counters and forces and moves.

The NFL has been more fun to watch and change over the last decade because it has adopted many concepts from some of college football’s best minds. But Pavia and Vanderbilt’s offense illustrates the superiority of the college product.

There are still a lot of things in the college game that people wouldn’t touch in the NFL, and some of them help create a level of parity that otherwise wouldn’t have a chance. Check out some of the things teams like Navy and UNLV are doing this season. And these teams don’t have to deal with teams like Texas and Alabama.

“If we want to win in this league,” Kill said, “we have to be different.”

PAVIA TO JOHNSON FOR THE TOUCHDOWN pic.twitter.com/UcS9lN4ndf

— Vanderbilt Football (@VandyFootball) October 5, 2024

Congratulations to the Vanderbilt fans who have been screaming for years that their team can’t compete without schematic uniqueness. You were right, just as you were wrong all Saturday afternoon that your team would screw up, the only question was the excruciating details.

While fans were beginning to have a fever dream of actually finishing the job against Alabama, Pavia conducted one of the wildest postgame interviews ever with Lang, highlighted by: “Vandy, we’re (fucking) crazy!”

Then Lea got emotional in a more traditional way, talking about his program, his players who have overcome years of defeat and his athletic director Candice Lee.

In September, Pavia and Vanderbilt were a story after Virginia Tech pulled off an early-season upset that now looks pretty mild. An eyebrow raised as Pavia began talking about his new head coach.

“Coach Leah? He’s a psychopath like me,” Pavia said. “Yes, of couse. Not many people would know this, but deep down he has the mentality to win at all costs and do whatever it takes. He has to act a certain way, but man, me and coach Lea have had deep conversations about things.”

Years from now, they may be talking about the role of Pavia and the offense he leads in salvaging a coaching tenure that went nowhere for three seasons.

Required reading

• Vanderbilt defeats No. 1 Bama. Is this the biggest upset in SEC history?

• When was the last time Vanderbilt beat Alabama? More than 40 years ago

• How does Vanderbilt’s upset of Alabama impact the College Football Playoff?

(Photo: Carly Mackler/Getty Images)