Diego Pavia responds to viral ‘sledgehammer’ comment from Ryan Williams
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Diego Pavia probably knew he was going to be asked about it.
The Vanderbilt star quarterback has shown himself to be ready for almost anything during his electrifying time in Nashville. So, when reporters asked Pavia about Ryan Williams’s comments regarding this fall’s Vandy-Alabama game at SEC Media Days on Monday, well, Pavia had a measured and succinct reply.
“I’ll be excited to play him in his stadium,” said Pavia, perhaps not giving the reporters in Atlanta the juicy response they were hoping for but giving the reply that he wanted to give.
Pavia didn’t feel like stoking the flames any more than Williams had already done in early June. That’s when Jon Gruden asked the Alabama star wide receiver how the Crimson Tide were going to respond in the rematch with Vandy this fall after the Commodores stunned then-No. 1 Alabama last fall.
So, Pavia decided to kind of leave it alone and go the straight-arrow route.
Williams didn’t go the straight-arrow route. He went in the exact opposite direction, in fact, when Gruden asked him about dealing with the sting of Vanderbilt’s 40-35 stunner in Nashville that set off a wild celebration complete with the goal posts ending up in the nearby Cumberland River.
“We don’t call them ‘revenge games,’” Williams told Gruden. “We’re going to kill an ant with a sledgehammer this year. Every game that we fell short last year, we’ve definitely got red eyes going into (this year).”
Last season’s monstrous upset took place on Oct. 5. Almost exactly a year later, on Oct. 4 in Tuscaloosa, the programs will collide again, possible sledgehammers and all.
Cory Nightingale, a former sportswriter and sports editor at the Miami Herald and Palm Beach Post, is a South Florida-based freelance writer who covers Alabama for SaturdayDownSouth.com.
