The oddsmakers suggest that Diego Pavia will at least be a Heisman Trophy runner-up, which would put him among SEC royalty
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If the oddsmakers are right, Diego Pavia isn’t finishing worse than No. 2 in the 2025 Heisman Trophy voting. That seems like a forgone conclusion.
That’s not necessarily the best way to predict how something will play out, but BetMGM has Pavia on an island at No. 2 in the odds leading up to Saturday’s ceremony (this was when betting was last made available on Tuesday):
- Fernando Mendoza -2000
- Diego Pavia +1000
- Jeremiyah Love +15000
- Julian Sayin +50000
Someone with 10-to-1 odds after voting closed doesn’t seem likely to win the award, but it would be stunning if Pavia finished outside the top 2.
Let’s put some perspective on that. With Pavia, all additional perspective is valid. We need to stack Pavia up against some SEC legends because that’s the category he put himself in.
You can pretty easily make the case that he’s been the best SEC player during his 2 years in the conference. Why? Last year, nobody in the SEC finished in the top 10 of the Heisman voting. Pavia might not have been a Heisman finisher, but he was at least an All-SEC quarterback in his breakout season. In fact, he was the first SEC quarterback ever to transfer directly from an FBS school and earn All-SEC honors in his first season in the conference. This year, we know that Pavia is guaranteed to be the highest SEC finisher in the Heisman voting.
Not all Heisman winners are created equal. At the same time, being considered 1 of the 2 best players in the sport is a lofty feat in any year, much less one in which the group of SEC quarterbacks was so decorated that Pavia didn’t even earn preseason All-SEC honors.
At this point, you know the SEC’s 21st century Heisman winners by heart. Tim Tebow, Mark Ingram, Cam Newton, Johnny Manziel, Derrick Henry, Joe Burrow, DeVonta Smith, Bryce Young and Jayden Daniels all did it. Perhaps it’s unfair to say that Pavia deserves to be remembered like those 9 guys if he’s only a runner-up. That’s fine. There’s a different discussion we can circle back to with those guys.
Look at the SEC’s Heisman runner-up group of the 21st century:
- Tua Tagovailoa, 2018
- AJ McCarron, 2013
- Darren McFadden, 2006-07
- Rex Grossman, 2001
That’s a group of 13 players that Pavia will be part of, and he won’t stand out. Will he be remembered in the same regard as Tebow? No, let’s not oversell here. Of those 13 guys, 8 of them also paired their Heisman win/runner-up with at least 1 national title. Pavia, unless he finds another year of eligibility buried deep in the couch cushions, won’t be able to do that.
But there’s perhaps a better question that we need to ask with Pavia to put proper context on his legacy.
How many players in the 21st century were more valuable to their program than Pavia?
If we’re expanding this to all of college football to determine the most valuable individuals to their respective universities in the 21st century, I’d concede the likes of Tebow, Manziel, Newton, Burrow, Robert Griffin III, Vince Young, Deshaun Watson, Baker Mayfield and Stetson Bennett IV. Outside of that, you can argue Pavia against the rest of the 21st century crew. The “rest” would include guys like Lamar Jackson, Jameis Winston, Reggie Bush and Ndamukong Suh. But even then, if we’re looking at what a program was before their arrival and how much they changed the conversations about their program, how can one do more than Pavia?
Even if fellow Heisman finalist Fernando Mendoza wins the award, he won’t be viewed as quite as valuable of a player to Indiana because of what happened in Year 1 under Curt Cignetti before he transferred from Cal. Pavia, on the other hand, was part of the foundation year at Vanderbilt, which was assumed to be a flash in the pan. Like, the foundation year that included a win against No. 1 Alabama.
“Most valuable” is perhaps a difficult thing to quantify until we’re years removed from it. As dazzling as a player like Jackson was, Bobby Petrino was fired a year after he left Louisville for the NFL. Bush was among the most electrifying players in college football history, but fair or not, there’s a part of his legacy that’s probably tainted by the NCAA violations that he brought his school. Some would argue that guys like Winston, Manziel and Watson brought certain levels of negative attention to their schools, albeit for very different reasons.
The odds are favorable that somewhere next to Vandy’s newly renovated stadium, Pavia will eventually have a statue. Maybe they’ll wait a few years to make sure he doesn’t bring any negative attention to the university, or perhaps the hay is in the barn with his legacy.
What’s undeniable is that Pavia is a 21st century SEC legend. He deserves to be viewed through that lens as someone who was part of a New Mexico State migration to 2-10 Vandy, and ultimately flipped the script for the most dire situation in the SEC. Since Pavia made his mark, Clark Lea got a new contract and in between his national media appearances talking about Vandy’s Playoff chances, he flipped 5-star quarterback Jared Curtis from Georgia. Those things don’t happen without Pavia. Period.
Nobody could’ve predicted that Pavia would even sniff All-SEC consideration once (he earned that twice), much less become the 27th player in the history of the SEC to finish in the top 2 in the Heisman voting. No matter what happens the rest of Pavia’s football career, he’ll deserve to be remembered as SEC royalty.
It wasn’t long ago that those odds were nonexistent.
Connor O'Gara is the senior national columnist for Saturday Down South. He's a member of the Football Writers Association of America. After spending his entire life living in B1G country, he moved to the South in 2015.
