Playoff Or Not, Remember This As The Greatest Vanderbilt Football Team Ever; Column
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NASHVILLE—When Diego Pavia plopped down in the tan leather chair alongside Bussin’ With The Boys hosts Taylor Lewan and Will Compton on a summer day, he was the only one on set that envisioned that his trip to Knoxville would end the way it did a few months later. Pavia believes in manifestation and had this all in mind, though.
By the time the day Pavia had circled on his calendar was all said and done, he had made it rain in the Neyland Stadium end zone, had performed a seemingly infinite amount of Heisman poses and had strengthened his rèsumè for the award as much as anyone in the country while subsequently adding to Vanderbilt’s College Football Playoff case. In the days following Vanderbilt’s win over Tennessee, Pavia had the chance to do something nobody seemed to believe he could do. The Vanderbilt quarterback went back on Bussin’ With The Boys and took his victory lap.
“A lot of people thought I was a fool, and just speaking about whatever,” Pavia said in regard to his summer comments in the moments following Vanderbilt’s win over Tennessee. “Obviously, if the score was different and we were on the opposite side — I would be getting a lot of hate right now. So, it’s two-sided, it’s how you see it. I’m just glad that our team was able to win.”
Who knows how this all ends for Pavia’s Heisman Trophy campaign or Vanderbilt’s College Football Playoff hopes, but after its win over Tennessee cements a few things that nobody can take away from this team and program. It just finished the greatest regular season in program history on the back of the greatest player to ever play for this program. It did it convincingly enough to land a successor with the ability to be better than him.
Barring a miracle shift in the College Football Playoff committee’s mind, Vanderbilt appears to be on the outside looking in on the bubble. It’s voiced its frustrations and has talked internally about adding a 13th game to its schedule to give the committee one final look, but its fate appears to be all but sealed. Don’t let that define what it’s done to this point, though. Don’t let the ideals that could define its future stain what this Vanderbilt team has done, what it did on Saturday night in Knoxville.
Let the memory of this Vanderbilt team come in the moments of euphoria as its players trotted over to its section of fans in Neyland Stadium. Remember Martel Hight waving around a belt in the end zone of Neyland Stadium where he walked off the field dejected as Vanderbilt finished a 2-10 season two years prior. Remember the imagery of Pavia, Vanderbilt coach Clark Lea and Vanderbilt athletic director Candice Storey Lee milling around as the last three members of Vanderbilt’s travelling party in the tunnel of one of college football’s greatest cathedrals after they had just conquered it. Remember this group of misfits defying every bit of logic and public opinion. Remember them changing Vanderbilt football forever.
Lea declared years ago that this program would be the best in the country. It’s not that just yet, but it’s a whole lot closer than anyone seemed to think he could get it. The idea that the word yet is involved carries a lot of weight.
“I want to say proud, but not satisfied, is how we capture it,” Lea said of the season. “I'm very proud of what this group has done together, I think. And I told the team we need to pause. We need to take a moment to appreciate it, because these moments become memories and we lose them.”
This group’s ending doesn’t appear as if it will be one for a storybook, but the moments in which Vanderbilt has created were appropriate for a program that will end the season as one of college football’s best stories whether it makes the playoff or not. It’s got a few minutes of being stuck in a haze of endless euphoria in Knoxville to remember. It’s got a legacy performance from Pavia on senior day to recall. It’s also got a few runs in which it appeared to be invincible to hang its hat on. It didn’t appear to be surprised by any of it despite it being unprecedented, either.
That’s what made Saturday so sweet for this program. It expected to win and believed with every ounce of its being, but it had never done it before. No other 10-2 team would float on air like that Vanderbilt team did in that moment, that’s its appeal. That’s why celebrities have flocked to it and it’s become one of America’s most polarizing college football teams despite a generally small brand.
The grounded underdogs that make up this roster still remember when their phone didn’t ring much as high schoolers, when their decisions to go to Vanderbilt were criticized by those who didn’t believe that they’d do more than fill a roster spot on the SEC’s bottomfeeder and collect a degree. There’s a level of gratuity to this program–evidenced by Vanderbilt kicker Brock Taylor Lambeau Leaping into the Neyland Stadium stands after a Vanderbilt win over his hometown team that overlooked him–that makes them a great American story, playoff or not.
Don’t let what happens on Sunday brush that under the rug, even if leaves a sour taste in the mouth of everyone within Vanderbilt’s program.
“This is a 10-win SEC team that has played in a lot of tough environments on the road. We've got a Heisman,” Lea said. “I think to do anything other than allow these guys to compete for it all would be just an injustice to the work they've done.”
_(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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