Diego Pavia Magic, Normalcy and Another Statement Win For Vanderbilt Football
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NASHVILLE — The euphoria flowed from every corner of the end zone as a similarly tangible swagger flew off of Vanderbilt quarterback Diego Pavia. As he so often does, college football’s greatest enigma took a sharp right and found the camera to make his case after a touchdown run that bolstered it.
Pavia didn’t care what anyone in the stadium thought about it, he ran up to the camera man and stood there as if he’d just secured the Heisman trophy.
Heisman moment or not, it was as compelling of a sequence as Pavia could’ve put together. The drive he assembled just had everything, a spurt of magic that accounted for a drive-extending first down on 4th and 1, a touchdown and the idea that he’d just secured Vanderbilt a victory over a top 10 team.
If LSU’s defenders were upset about it, they should’ve done something about it. If they didn’t want Pavia to stand there and pose for the camera, they should’ve tackled him at one of the 21 yard markers that he passed in order to get to the end zone. They didn’t, though.
As a result, Pavia had his moment and nobody was taking it away from him. He deserved to have it, too.
“I didn’t see the pose, but I think he’s the best player in college football,” Vanderbilt coach Clark Lea said. “You can’t watch him play and not realize what a game changer he is. There are a lot of good players, there’s only a handful to me that can take a game over and he’s one of those. He deserves all the attention.”
About that magic, it was as present as it’s been all season as Paiva faced up with LSU linebacker Jack Pyburn, shimmied and evaded him to find Vanderbilt running back MK Young on 4th and 1. Lea says that Pavia is the “one person” in the country who can make that play. The Vanderbilt quarterback appeared to be all but dead in the water. Instead, he and Vanderbilt were as alive as they’d ever been.
As a result of what it did Saturday, Vanderbilt’s College Football Playoff hopes are also alive and well. It’s a real contender to go dancing with the sport’s best.
It can worry about that later, though. How about what it did today? LSU knew how good this Vanderbilt team was as it took the field as 2.5-point favorites and still couldn’t do anything about it. For the seventh time in program history, Vanderbilt knocked off an AP Top 10 team. For the first time since 1950, it moved to 6-1. For the first time since 1990, it knocked off LSU.
“This is a new Vandy,” Vanderbilt defensive end Khordae Sydnor said. “People expect that we’re gonna win. It’s period point blank, in the SEC we can compete with anybody and I think you saw it today.”
Nobody has made LSU’s mighty defense–which hadn’t given up more than 24 points this season and had only allowed their opponents to eclipse 20 points one time–-look uniquely human rather than dragon-esque. Not many have withstood performances like that by LSU quarterback Garrett Nussmeier. Vanderbilt did, though.
It was as magical of a day as this program has had since its win over No. 1 Alabama last season, yet it didn’t appear as if this was all that abnormal. Its students waited the obligatory minute to storm the field. It won by playing to its formula. It was just a good team winning a game against another one.
No t-shirts commemorating bowl eligibility, no music blasting all the way to the media room. Business as usual.
“We have higher goals,” Lea said of bowl eligibility. “It’s not that I don’t want it to sound like I’m not excited about the fact that we’ve secured a postseason bid, but we’re really interested in taking this as far as we can.”
Martel Hight stood there grinning and taking pictures with fans, Cole Spence hung around and hugged fans, many others snapped selfies with fans and family alike. Athletic director Candice Storey Lee stood there behind the south end zone clapping. It was almost businesslike. Perhaps it was euphoric for this fanbase, but it was expected for this group.
It may have taken some magic, but Vanderbilt is finding that days like this are becoming more and more common for it. Days like Saturday are just steps for it to get to the place it ultimately wants to go rather than statement wins.
That doesn’t make it any less special, though.
“Today was our day,” Lea said. “I think a lot of that had to do with how we responded, how we stayed together and how we played Vanderbilt football.”
_(1)-b3e453dfe426b2dd4b83a12540ebdb37.jpeg "Joey Dwyer")
Joey Dwyer is the lead writer on Vanderbilt Commodores On SI. He found his first love in college sports at nearby Lipscomb University and decided to make a career of telling its best stories. He got his start doing a Notre Dame basketball podcast from his basement as a 14-year-old during COVID and has since aimed to make that 14-year-old proud. Dwyer has covered Vanderbilt sports for three years and previously worked for 247 Sports and Rivals. He contributes to Seth Davis' Hoops HQ, Southeastern 16 and Mainstreet Nashville.
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