Diego Pavia is college football’s MVP… but that won’t win him the Heisman
By David Wasson
Published:
Rough math tells us that there are about 148,000 college football players in the United States, with about 16,250 playing on the 130 teams in the Football Bowl Subdivision – all of whom are in theoretical contention for the Heisman Trophy.
The plaque affixed to that 45-pound hunk of bronze affirms the player who takes it home as “the most outstanding college football player in the United States,” and while we argue endlessly over exactly who deserves Mr. Stiff Arm, it is doubtful that the 2025 winner will end up being Diego Pavia.
And while the Heisman will likely go to another non-Pavia player on Dec. 13, it is tough to argue against the notion that the Vanderbilt quarterback is the most valuable player in the sport.
Pavia is set to play in the final regular season game of his nothing-to-superstar career Saturday when the 14th-ranked Commodores travel across the state to take on No. 20 Tennessee (3:30 p.m. ET, ESPN). The fact that the Vandy-Tennessee game is at all meaningful – not to mention potentially pivotal in the College Football Playoff realm – is strictly because of a player who received precisely 0 D1 offers out of high school.
Pavia’s route to national prominence is a well-documented one, but the 5-11 kid who threw for only 1,485 yards and 14 touchdowns as a senior at Volcano Vista High School in Albuquerque and ended up playing JUCO ball at New Mexico Military Institute.
Flash forward 4 years later and Pavia was seemingly destined to depart New Mexico State for Nevada, but instead followed departing Aggies coach Jerry Kill to Vanderbilt – a decision that barely registered a blip on anyone’s radar at the time but ended up being the best single acquisition in Vanderbilt athletic history.
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Still undersized as a now-SEC quarterback but armed with both the dual-threat talent and moxie of a superstar just looking for the right stage, Pavia instantly infused perennial doormat Vanderbilt with something it had never had before: a winning attitude. That manifested itself in the Commodores’ 5th game of the season, as poor ol’ Vandy calmly knocked off No. 1 Alabama 40-35 in a stunner that saw Pavia throw for 252 yards and 2 touchdowns while running for 56 yards.
Overnight, Pavia went from unknown to legend status – a transformation that had the potential of starting his 15-minute timer of fame but instead sparked an even higher level of Pavia greatness. True, he didn’t throw for more than 200 yards in a game the rest of 2024. And true, Vandy would lose 3 of its final 4 games in the regular season before downing Georgia Tech in the Birmingham Bowl in what traditionally would have been his final collegiate game.
But what came next absolutely no one saw coming.
Arguing against a rule that counted junior college seasons against a student-athlete’s recruiting clock and thus limited a player’s Name, Image and Likeness potential earnings, Pavia filed a lawsuit against the NCAA in November 2024. And he won – with a U.S. District Court judge granting him a preliminary injunction in December 2024 for the 2025 season.
Armed with 1 more season in Nashville, Pavia arrived in 2025 not as a transfer portal afterthought but as a bona fide sensation. After the requisite rounds of SEC Talking Season, Pavia and the Commodores set out on a 6-game winning streak to start the actual season that vaulted Vanderbilt – yes, Vanderbilt — to No. 16 in the country.
Pavia shined in Vandy’s 30-14 loss to Alabama, and the ensuing wins against then-No. 10 LSU and then-No. 15 Missouri propelled the Commodores to No. 9 in the country heading into a Week 10 showdown against No. 20 Texas. And even with the ensuing loss, Vanderbilt has an outside shot of earning a berth in the 12-team College Football Playoff.
But how do you quantify Pavia’s greatness over the past 2 magical seasons at Vanderbilt? Sure, the 64.4% completion rate, 4,733 passing yards and 41 touchdowns against 9 interceptions stand alone. So, too, do the 117 carries for 613 yards and 7 rushing touchdowns. And yes, there is the 15-8 record in Pavia’s 23 games under center.
But it is tougher to quantify Pavia’s presence for a city and a program that simply hadn’t tasted the kind of success the Commodores have delivered. Nashville has embraced Vanderbilt with every gritty Pavia run or needle-threading completion. What was the easiest stadium to visit for a victory has been a house of pain for SEC opponents. And what was a laughingstock of a program has been carried to the cusp of the CFP by Pavia’s sheer force of will.
“He’ll be someone who will be in conversations for the next 50 years here,” Vanderbilt coach Clark Lea said last week prior to a 45-17 beatdown of Kentucky that saw Pavia throw for a career-high 484 yards and 5 touchdowns. “So it will be an opportunity to watch a guy that is a Heisman contender for a reason, that we believe is the best player in the country, that has earned the right to have people paying attention to him.
“This guy has laid it on the line for this program, this city, for 2 years. He’d be the first to tell you that the story of this program isn’t about one person, but a group of people that have bound together to do something that no one thought was possible. And yet, he’s the quarterback. He makes it go. He’s had some absolutely magical moments on that field and will leave this program having forever changed it.”
That, ladies and gentlemen, is the true definition of a most valuable player. Will Pavia hear his name called as the most outstanding college football player in the United States next month? Probably not. But what he has done for Vanderbilt is arguably even more special.
An APSE national award-winning writer and editor, David Wasson has almost four decades of experience in the print journalism business in Florida and Alabama. His work has also appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times and several national magazines and websites. He also hosts Gulfshore Sports with David Wasson, weekdays from 3-5 pm across Southwest Florida and on FoxSportsFM.com. His Twitter handle: @JustDWasson.
