A Spiritual Revival: Inside Vanderbilt Football’s Boldness For Jesus Christ

Vanderbilt quarterback Diego Pavia stood on the 46-yard line toward the north end zone of FirstBank Stadium for a postgame interview with ESPN’s Katie George following Vanderbilt's 31-24 win over a No. 10 LSU team. When George asked Pavia the first question – a question about his performance along with the team – his answer was possibly enough to catch someone off guard. Instead of starting the interview responding about the game, Pavia’s response went straight to the heart of the team: God.

“It got a little overwhelming the past few weeks, and I really wasn’t being myself. I wasn’t chasing God, so he was there to humble me,” Pavia said to ESPN. “Obviously, no one’s perfect. I just want to chase Him and encourage everyone to chase Him. That’s the better life out there.”

Before beating LSU, Vanderbilt was coming off a 30-14 loss to Alabama on the road. Despite the 16-point loss, the Commodores had opportunities to win the game, but two turnovers in the red zone proved costly in the game. Between the Alabama and the LSU game, Pavia sat down with his star tight end, Eli Stowers. Stowers, who is regarded as the spiritual mentor amongst the players and coaching staff, talked with Pavia about what his main focus was. Rather than focusing too much on football to the point where it became a part of Pavia’s identity, Stowers helped guide Vanderbilt’s star quarterback back to God.

“Eli was there to tell me where I was making the mistake, and that’s where I was making the mistake and I just got back on path,” Pavia told ESPN.

Stowers’ moment of leadership directing Pavia is just one of many examples and moments that Stowers has been a part of throughout his collegiate career. Stowers is more than just a high-profile collegiate tight end that is certain to be drafted in the 2026 NFL Draft should he declare for the draft. Stowers’ main focus is and has been his Christian faith, serving Jesus Christ and sharing that with others on his team.

Stowers’ impact he has had on sharing his faith and spreading the Gospel of Jesus Christ with his teammates has been visible. But before coming to Vanderbilt, Stowers and plenty of other Commodores were teammates on New Mexico State during the 2023 season. There, a seed of religious revival was planted.

Among his teammates in Las Cruces, New Mexico was Vanderbilt’s backup quarterback Blaze Berlowitz. Berlowitz and Stowers built a friendship together while at New Mexico State and started going to church together with a few other teammates that Berlowitz notes had a “strong faith.” From then on, a relationship between the two continued to develop as they transferred to Vanderbilt together and continued to attend church together along with other teammates.

The change in Berlowitz’ faith since the beginning of his collegiate days has progressed. With so many distractions in life, Berlowitz has learned to go to his brothers in Christ and to God for accountability whenever need be.

“It can be easy to get off on the wrong path. When you do slip up, understand that you are imperfect and a sinner, but you have a brotherhood and you have Christ, who redeems you and gets you going back again,” Berlowitz said on what he has learned most since progressing in his faith with his teammates.

Stowers’ faith and his relationship with God has not always existed, which is something he would admit to. As he detailed in his testimony (his story on his relationship with God), Stowers grew up in a traditional Christian family household. Like many people today, Stowers grew up going to church on Sundays, praying with this family and reading the Bible with his family. But on his own, his faith and relationship with God was a different story.

“I could tell you about Christ, and what it says in the word, but I didn't have a relationship with Him. I never spent time with God. I never had a prayer life. I never read my Bible on my own. I wasn't watching sermons, learning more other than what my parents taught me,” Stowers told Vandy On SI. And it caused me to put a lot of worth in who I was as a football player, rather than my identity in Christ.”

Then in his junior year of high school, everything changed. A knee injury put his football career in jeopardy after doctors had told him that there was a possibility of his knee never being the same again. At that moment, Stowers was at a crossroads.

“I felt like my life was over. And that taught me that my worth was in something that can be taken away in an instant. And so it kind of opened my eyes to the fact that I need to truly hone in on my relationship with Christ, actually spend time with him, understand that that's why I'm here on this earth,” Stowers said.

It was an injury that turned into a huge blessing. Stowers quickly turned to God and has since formed a relationship with Him that allows him to serve God and minister to his teammates. With that comes responsibility. Stowers has assumed the role of the spiritual leader. There was not some formal process to find himself in that position. It just happened through being outspoken on his faith.

But in the Christian faith, followers of Christianity are called to be a spiritual leader in their own lives, guiding others toward Jesus Christ. In fact, in Matthew 28:19-20, Jesus’ final words were, “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.” For Stowers, he takes those words to heart.

“That's a blessing that I’m viewed that way,” Stowers said on being considered the spiritual leader of the team. “But in reality as a Christian, you kind of take on that responsibility in and of itself. Anybody that doesn't know Christ, you kind of have that responsibility to tell them about the faith and tell them about the gospel. The fact that I am a leader on the team, it just kind of happened that way, because that's what I talk about so much.”

Behind the leader of the players is the one who is shepherding and guiding the faith of the team and coaches. Lance Brown, who is known by players and coaches as Brother B, is the team pastor for Vanderbilt athletics. Brown has been pastoring athletes in the Middle Tennessee area since 1995, where he was on staff for the Fellowship of Christian Athletes (FCA) in Nashville. In 2001, Brother B turned his focus to forming his own ministry in Nashville called “WhoUWith Ministries,” leading athletes at Vanderbilt University toward God in the Christian faith. A part of that includes being “available” to coaching staff and players of Vanderbilt football, including this year’s team.

With the players being on campus and away from families during the season and the school year, Brother B has been more than just a person that offers spiritual guidance. In some cases, he sees his role as being a father figure to the players, helping the guys in their spiritual walk as they navigate through the student-athlete life.

During the week, Brown hosts various events that help the players grow spiritually and grow closer to Christ. One of those events is a Friday night chapel where Brown talks to coaches and athletes for about 15 to 20 minutes about where the team is at spiritually. He also hosts an event on Thursdays called the “Dirty Dozen,” or “D12.” The name comes from the Christian view of the human condition that every person is a sinner. Every person on this planet has made mistakes and done things he or she is not proud of and therefore needs a savior.

One of the main things that is talked about in the meetings is how to be a man of God, or how to become a Biblical man. In a world where not every male, including younger generations, has a father figure, Brother B preaches and discusses scripture with players as to what it looks like to be a man in the Christian faith.

“One of the things this fall we've been talking about a lot is what Biblical manhood looks like. What is it? The way it's displayed in Scripture is that we as men are to be servants and we're to be sacrificial,” Brother B told Vandy On SI. “We just talk about what that looks like, and what it looks like to be godly and to pursue those kinds of things as a man, and not just be in the room, but be present in someone's life.”

One of the players involved in those discussions and the weekly events is one of Vanderbilt’s tight ends, Cole Spence. Through his time at Vanderbilt, Spence’s faith has been completely changed by his fellow tight end in Stowers as well as Brother B. Similar to Stowers, Spence knew plenty of things about the Bible. But Spence admits that he never had a defined faith toward the end of his high school career. As the Roswell, Georgia native left high school for Vanderbilt, Spence was pondering some of life’s biggest questions.

“I was just like ‘what evidence is there that there actually is a God to me? And then if there actually is a god, why is the Christian God the right one?' Honestly, I wasn't even dealing with those questions, I was just putting it off. Because if you're a Christian, you have to be a different way. And I was like, ‘I don't really want to do that.’ I wanted to live like me.”

All those questions and thoughts came to a sudden breaking point in October of 2024. Vanderbilt was scheduled to take on No. 1 Alabama Oct. 5 last year. The night before, Spence’s dad, Randy Spence, was diagnosed with atrial fibrillation (AFib), a heart condition in which the heart beats at a highly rapid pace. For Randy, his resting heart rate got up to 170-180 beats per minute.

As a result, Randy was rushed to see a doctor in Nashville that Cole Spence had connected his father with. Randy then underwent an ablation to treat his AFib. The procedure -- which is done through a tube being placed in a blood vessel that goes to the heart -- was a success. The exact cause of Randy’s AFib was unclear, but was told that somehow there was an issue in one of the upper chambers of his heart.

“The top of your heart and the bottom of your heart have these, I'll call them, wires that make the top talk to the bottom and vice versa,” he told Vandy On SI as he recalled what doctors informed him of. “One of my wires was shorting out, that's what was causing the heart to race so much for no reason. They went in through my leg and up to the heart, and electrically zapped these wires.”

The surgery was executed perfectly, and Randy has had no issues since then. But for Cole Spence, it was more than just a brief family health scare. Without a definitive faith in any god or religion, it brought his identity into question and brought all his previous questions on religion he wondered about up to the forefront.

“When you're in that moment and when you don't have any faith, and you feel like your dad's looking at death's door, you realize, ‘okay, I need to answer what questions I believe about what happens after death.’ Because if I don't know, then I don't really know who I am. I put my identity in my father. At the very least, I am my father's son, but he may pass. Then I said ‘I don't know who I am anymore all this time.’”

What was a scary moment in Cole’s journey quickly turned into one of the biggest positives in his life. Shortly after his dad’s surgery, Spence started to dive right into investigating all the questions that he had procrastinated on for years. He went straight into apologetics, which are documents, books and commentaries that defend the Christian faith.

Through his own research of books such as “More Than A Carpenter” by Josh McDowell and through the discussion with Stowers, Spence’s questions about the Christian faith were answered. He came to the conclusion that of all the religions, Jesus Christ (the God of Christianity) is the one true God. After declaring his faith for Christianity, Spence decided to get baptized in the spring of 2025.

The research that he dived into are some of life’s biggest questions. How did the earth come to form? Why are humans here? Is there any god at all to this, or is this all a random coincidence? And even if there is a god, who is it, what is the god all about and why is that god the correct one? They are the questions that every human must deal with at some point in his or her life. For not just Spence, but for Vanderbilt football as a whole, the Commodores found what they and many others around the world believe to be the truth: Jesus Christ.

In Brother B’s view, Cole Spence’s faith journey is a clear example of how God has been moving throughout the Vanderbilt locker room. Some of it, he credits to Stowers.

“There’s a sacred space in athletics and that’s the locker room. I think Eli’s had a significant impact where guys are just asking him hard questions about Scripture and about faith, and he's embedded in the locker room and certainly mature enough to answer. Cole Spence had a lot of questions, but Eli was a big part of walking him through that,” Brother B said.

In sports, one thing that brings a team together and increases the brotherhood and chemistry between players is a collective purpose, or a collective “Why.” Players on a team may play for a certain player or the players may play for their own families. Not only has Vanderbilt found the reason why it plays the game of football, but it has also found verses from the Bible to rally around.

If someone were to talk to the players, especially those most bold about their Christian faith, about the verses from the Bible that have been most helpful, they would all say Romans 8:28. The verse states, “And we know that for those who love God, all things work together for good for those who are called according to His purpose.”

The context of the verse is that Christians put their faith in God and He uses the life circumstances of believers for His ultimate purpose. Through the highs and the lows of life, God uses each experience Christians have for good. It is not what humans would define “good” as, but rather is a good that is used to glorify God and His purpose in the end.

What is interesting is that Romans 8:28 was not a specific verse that was preached by Brother B. The team has rallied around the verse on their own doing, and it brought the team closer together.

“Every team has a DNA. I think that verse has been something that’s organic for them. It is a verse about whether something good or something bad happens, everything works together for God’s plan. I think that verse reminds us that no matter how good things are or how tough things get, God has a plan in the midst of it and we trust in it,” Brother B said.

Among the Vanderbilt running back room is Makhilyn “MK” Young. Young, who is an ordained pastor, is a great example of Romans 8:28. During the 2024 season, Young took the season off where he went to seminary school to become a pastor and did mission work at Greater Ideal Baptist church in Midland, Texas. Some days his roles would be helping out with Bible studies with the afterschool program, other days he would be mopping the gym floor in the church, cleaning classrooms or cleaning the bathrooms.

While that may not seem like the ideal day-to-day duties to the average person, it was something that gave Young fulfillment and grew him spiritually. Young said that attending seminary school and doing mission work in his community was something that he had been “running” from for some time. But once he followed what he believed was God’s calling for him, it turned into something he would never forget.

“Helping out the kids was one of the best experiences I’ve had. To me, that was something I loved doing. I believe God has a calling on my life to help in whatever way with whatever platform,” Young told Vandy On SI.

Just as Romans 8:28 details, God uses the situations and scenarios people are in for His purpose, regardless of who the person is and what his or her situation is. For Young, the meaning of the verse makes sense. God has a plan that whatever one goes through and it will eventually turn out for His good.

“There are so many things in life and probably your life too, where how you got here has added up to how you got in this particular spot. Everything will add up. It may not seem like it, but if you keep trusting Him and lean not into your own understanding, things start to make sense,” Young said. “When obstacles start coming in, you start running to God and start understanding that He is the Way, the Truth and the Life.”

Vanderbilt football is one of the latest teams that have publicly been outspoken about the Christian faith. But what is interesting is that this religious revival toward Jesus Christ is just another example in a phenomenon that has been going on within just the past year or two, in both collegiate athletics and society.

Another team that has had an awakening of its own is Ohio State’s football team. In August of 2024 as students returned to campus in Columbus, Ohio State football players preached the Gospel of Jesus Christ in front of hundreds of students. The team continued to speak boldly about their faith throughout last season and has continued to do this year on various platforms.

Auburn’s basketball team is another example. In September of 2023, the team and coaching staff hosted and promoted an event called “Unite Auburn,” where the event saw several students being baptized into the faith. Since then, the team has gone viral for its “Call God” celebration as a way to give glory to God in their faith.

Vanderbilt has also hosted its own event on campus that featured athletes speaking about their own faith. In the postgame press conference after the aforementioned LSU win, Cole Spence walked to the podium with a shirt that read “Come As You Are.” It was in reference to the event that Spence, Stowers and a couple other Vanderbilt student-athletes put together on campus where Stowers shared his testimony along with Vanderbilt men’s basketball guard Tyler Tanner and Vanderbilt soccer defender Hannah McLaughlin as the athletes also helped host a night of worship with Vanderbilt students.

Between Vanderbilt, Ohio State and Auburn, what has taken place is not just a trend. This is not something the three teams chose to do as a way to go viral nor as a way to join in on some social media fad. Rather, what has transpired is a religious awakening. Whatever the reason is, the fact of the matter is that people throughout the world, including in the U.S. and especially in younger generations are seem to be tackling life’s biggest questions and starting to wake up to the seriousness of them.

On top of that, plenty of people in the younger generations have seemed to start yearning for meaningful things such as spiritual connections. Or, as Brother B puts it, people are looking for “more substance than flash.” It is interesting to think about is why this is happening. Why are not only collegiate teams, but people around the country having a religious awakening toward the Christian faith in the first place? And why is it happening now? The exact answer to the question may not be figured out, but Brother B shared what he thought from a pastor’s point of view.

“This generation is looking for depth. They're asking harder questions honestly than some groups I've had in the past,” Brother B said. “But then the other thing I would say is through history, awakenings or revivals occur in this age bracket or they get launched out of this age bracket a lot of times. I'm really encouraged by the questions that are being asked, the things I'm seeing on other campuses, the curiosity. But then it's also followed by some depth and boldness, that's really exciting.”

In a generation that is looking for depth and substance, Vanderbilt has found it and is never shy about sharing it. Pavia sharing how shifting his focus back to God in an on-field postgame interview is just one of various examples of members of the team sharing their faith.

In the final weekend in October, Vanderbilt defended home turf against a top 15 Missouri team. It was not the prettiest game. In fact, nearly every statistical category other than the scoreboard went against Vanderbilt. The game was a microcosm of the faith of the team. Despite playing arguably its worst game on offense this season, the belief and faith the team had never wavered. It seemed as though it was a visible example of the faith being rewarded or blessed by God in real time. After the dust of the game settled, Pavia took the podium and discussed that very thing.

“I think we all have a lot of faith in Christ, and I feel like a lot of guys are just pushing toward Christ,” Pavia said. “I feel like we’re Christ’s team.”

Players giving glory to God and sharing their faith in postgame press conferences is not a foreign concept. Throughout sports, athletes across different sports leagues do so after just about every game they play in. For those who are not in the faith it may be difficult to understand the reason why, and understandably so. It all goes back to the heart of the reason. The whole purpose and reason why athletes like Pavia, Young, Stowers, Spence and others share their faith publicly through the wins and the losses all traces to their “Why.”

“The reason is because of God,” Young said. “The reason we’re here is because of God. I only want to do good just for God because he’s blessed me with these talents. It’s like ‘God, I just want to show people how You can turn something that is looked at so worse to something that is such a blessing.’”

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