‘He’s the straw that stirs the drink for them’ — Vanderbilt QB Diego Pavia could give Texas football fits in Week 9
Nobody loves to study quarterbacks more than Texas coach Steve Sarkisian. Vanderbilt’s Diego Pavia seems like a player Sarkisian would love. Pavia has taken the SEC by storm this season. The Albuquerque native was a three-time state wrestling finalist and multi-sport star while growing up in New Mexico. He started his college football career at […]
Nobody loves to study quarterbacks more than Texas coach Steve Sarkisian.
Vanderbilt’s Diego Pavia seems like a player Sarkisian would love.
Pavia has taken the SEC by storm this season. The Albuquerque native was a three-time state wrestling finalist and multi-sport star while growing up in New Mexico. He started his college football career at New Mexico Military Institute, then transferred to New Mexico State and become the 2023 Conference USA player of the year.
Pavia transferred to Vanderbilt for his final season and it couldn’t be going any better.
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Pavia is the team’s No. 1 offensive threat. He’s already taken down then-No. 15 Alabama. The Commodores are back in the Associated Press Top 25 this week for the program’s first top-25 matchup since 2008. And Pavia now has his own clothing options available through the school’s NIL program.
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“He’s kind of that definition of grit,” Sarkisian said. “Grit is always something very hard to define. Sometimes it’s easier to see. And he’s a gritty player.
“He’s tough. He finds a way to make plays, whether it’s with his legs, with his arm, with his legs and his arm. You know, he runs tough, he runs hard, he makes the throws when he needs to make them. And I think that that he's infused that grit into their program.
“And that’s to take nothing away from coach Lee. I’m sure Clark Lee knew and identified that and saw that in him, but they have it.”
Sarkisian went one more step and said of Pavia, “He’s the straw that stirs the drink for them.”
Pavia is rare. He’s the team’s leading rusher with 470 yards and three touchdowns. That’s in addition to completing 66.2% of his passes for 1,391 yards with 11 touchdowns and just one interception.
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For years, the 25th-ranked Commodores were the SEC’s doormat. Not any more.
Pavia ran a whopping 20 times for 56 yards in the win over Alabama, triggering a field rush where fans tore down the goal posts. Those downed yellow beams were carried down to Broadway, smack in the heart of Nashville’s tourist area, and thrown in the Cumberland River.
He ran for a season-high 104 yards in the season-opening win over Virginia Tech and 82 last weekend against Ball State.
The Texas defense let Georgia’s Carson Beck complete 23 of 41 passes for 175 yards, but the unit didn’t let him do much on the ground. Beck had just eight rushing yards on four attempts. Five yards came on one carry alone.
Pavia is totally different.
“He hands the ball off the running back, kind of bounces off a soft tackler, and he's over there running to try to lead block,” Texas safety Michael Taaffe said. “What the heck? That’s the quarterback.
“This guy, he’s a guy that’s just super tough, and he shows that. His team probably really is excited to play for that guy, because he wants to win, looks like more than anybody.”
