Kirk Herbstreit names college football's Offensive Player of the Year for 2025

Herbstreit nominates his top three offensive players of the college football season and makes his pick

Kirk Herbstreit and his dog Peter walk | Troy Taormina-Imagn Images

The meat of the 2025 college football season is done and over. Teams are either packing flowered shirts for beachside bowl games, ramping up for the College Football Playoff, or decompressing before a hectic January transfer portal window. Which makes right now the perfect time for Kirk Herbstreit to drop his year-end awards.

ESPN's No. 1 college football broadcaster, Kirk Herbstreit was live for many of the best games of the season, and he's always considered a foremost authority on the sport. So, after another fall full of fun and silliness. Herbstreit handed out his Offensive Player of the Year nominations before picking a winner.

The nominations? Notre Dame running back Jeremiyah Love, Indiana quarterback Fernando Mendoza, and Vanderbilt quarterback Diego Pavia. The winner? Allow Herbstreit to say himself:

"The Herbie Award for Offensive Player of the Year goes to Vanderbilt quarterback Diego Pavia," a voiceover announced as confetti rained down on Herbstreit (not actually). "Well, you could give it to anybody on this list. I’d like to be a little bit different," he said.

Vanderbilt quarterback Diego Pavia (2) celebrates | Mark Zaleski / The Tennessean / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

For Herbstreit, different means picking the showboating cocksure QB from Nashville. After all, Vanderbilt is 10-2 this season and resurgent in the 2020s largely on the back of Pavia over any other player. For that, you have to respect the kid.

"I think this has everything to do with where this program has been before Clark Lea got back to his alma mater and Diego Pavia transferred in," Herbstreit explained. "Every single time it just seems like he would step up, make plays. He had some swag of course, which I think was new for all of us to see that Vandy uniform having a guy doing things like that."

If you were viewing this award like the NBA or NFL MVP, where a player's value to their specific team is the top grading critera, then Herbstreit believes Pavia is an easy pick here: "But I look at any of these individual awards and how they impacted the team, and in my opinion, I don’t know if anybody in the country impacted their team the way Diego Pavia did."

Diego Pavia really did it all, man. The Vanderbilt quarterback finished the 2025 regular season leading the SEC in... completion percentage (71%), touchdowns (27), yards per pass attempt (9.4) and quarterback rating (171.5) as he totaled more than 3,000 passing yards and 4,000+ total yards combining rushing with passing. Simply one of the shining talents of his era — and one of the most fun.

We'll miss ya, DP.