The Rise of Diego Pavia: From New Mexico to Nashville to the Chaos of College Football
Diego Pavia rolled into the New Mexico Military Institute with bleached blond hair, earrings, chains around his neck and a tank top.
Brimming with the confidence of a star quarterback and the toughness and determination of a state champion wrestler, Pavia made quite the first impression.
“Paulie? Pauly D, or whatever his name is? Diego would be a 100 percent fit for ‘Jersey Shore,’” said Chase Kyser, who was the offensive coordinator at the junior college when Pavia arrived in 2020.
The paint job is now gone. The bravado and fearlessness, qualities that have not always worked to Pavia’s advantage, have only become stronger. With a fiercely supportive, always-ready-to-celebrate family behind him, Pavia has become exactly the player and leader he always knew he could be – even if only a few others saw that potential.
Last Saturday, against the No. 1 team in the country, Pavia went from college football’s favorite indie band quarterback, a cult hero for die-hard New Mexico State fans who ended up at Vanderbilt this season via transfer, to a of this season’s breakthroughs. stars.
Pavia led the Commodores to a stunning 40-35 upset of Alabama with a performance that was at once virtuosic and grungy, precise (16 for 20 for 252 yards) and gritty (20 carries for 52 yards). He celebrated Vandy’s first win against the Crimson Tide in 40 years by praising God and dropping an F-bomb on live television, with his brothers leading the charge in taking down the goalposts at FirstBank Stadium.
It looks like the Vandy goalposts are heading towards Broadway pic.twitter.com/ZPzMzKgcRB
— Sam Shamburger (@shamnadoes) October 6, 2024
“It’s something I knew I could do. And that’s not that I’m stubborn. That’s just me, you know, who I am,” Pavia shared The Athletics Sunday evening. “But I feel like every time I touch the field, I’m the best player on the field and no matter who we’re playing, that’s just who I am.”
I’m sorry I cursed last night, but God, you are the TRUTH AND ALL THE GLORY GOES TO YOU!! For anyone who doesn’t know him: get to know him. HE IS MAGICAL‼️
— Diego Pavia (@diegopavia02) October 6, 2024
Those who believed in Pavia, those who turned out to be smart or lucky enough to give him a chance, say the swagger and in-your-face playing style are balanced by a tenacious work ethic and infectious positivity.
“Despite all the people talking about how he rubs people (the wrong way), I’ve never met a better leader,” said Chad Wallin, head coach at Volcano Vista High School in Albuquerque, where Pavia led the team to the state championship led. game as a senior.
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Pavia credits his mother, Antoinette Padilla, for teaching him a simple philosophy: if you want something, you work for it.
“My mother, she has a hard hat and a lunch pail. She grew up with 13 siblings in one house,” Pavia said.
It wasn’t until he was older, Pavia said, that he realized that on those nights when his mother said she wasn’t hungry and only ate a little at dinner, she made sure her children had enough to eat.
As is often the case with little brothers, Pavia was motivated to keep up with his older siblings, Roel Pavia Jr., 25, and Javier Pavia, 24. Their younger sister, 14-year-old Abrielle, is a basketball star who already has something her brother never got: a scholarship from New Mexico.
Diego said that his older brothers would give him a hard time when he was young, leading to some frustration and occasional tears.
But not for long.
“He would kick my ass,” said Roel Pavia, who wrestled and played football at Briar Cliff University, an NAIA school in Iowa. “He got to the point where he started growing and didn’t stop, and he became bigger than us.”
Diego started receiving interest from small colleges in both wrestling and football right out of high school, but not at the level he felt he deserved.
“The only time I ever saw him frustrated was when a coach came to meet him and pulled him out of class, and Diego was standing on his damn toes trying to make himself look 6 feet tall,” Wallin said. “I remember laughing so hard because I think Northern Arizona here was looking at him, and he was standing on his toes, and I kept whispering. ‘They will know Diego. They’ll figure out very quickly that you’re 5-10 or whatever. ”
For the record, Vanderbilt calls Pavia 6 feet tall.
Pavia was particularly dismayed by the lack of interest from his hometown school, New Mexico, which was wrapping up the Bob Davie era and hiring Danny Gonzales as head coach in 2019.
“They called my head coach and basically said they didn’t want me because they thought I was arrogant,” Pavia said. “But there’s a difference between arrogance and self-confidence, and that’s why they got it wrong. Those coaches are no longer there at UNM.”
Kyser and then-New Mexico Military head coach Joe Forchtner liked what they saw and were happy with Pavia, but even then it wasn’t until the week before the first game – NMMI’s 2020 season was pushed back to the spring of 2021 due to the pandemic – that Pavia went from No. 3 on the depth chart to another first-team quarterback.
In Game 2, the job was his. NMMI went to a bowl game in Pavia’s first year and won a national juco title in year 2.
“What set him apart from everyone else, and I think it still is, is everyone just rallies around him,” Forchtner said. “You know, when he’s on the field, everyone believes.”
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When Jerry Kill, who was hired as New Mexico State’s head coach in November 2021, and Aggies offensive coordinator Tim Beck scouted that juco title game — watching on TV from a Hooters, Kill said — it was the Iowa Western quarterback who was their target.
“As we watch the game, we look at each other, we think, ‘We’re recruiting the wrong guy,’” Beck said.
In two seasons at New Mexico State, Pavia, Kill and Beck helped the Aggies go 17-11 – including a 31-10 loss to Auburn last year – and reach two bowl games, a remarkable feat for a program that only had played in four seasons. come sooner.
Last season, Vanderbilt coach Clark Lea went to Las Cruces to talk to Beck about becoming the Commodores’ offensive coordinator. Lea eventually brought Beck and Pavia to Nashville, along with a handful of other Aggies. Then Beck pulled Kill out of his brief retirement and convinced the 63-year-old to join Lea’s staff. Kill, who built a reputation for turning around struggling programs in Northern Illinois and Minnesota, was given the title of chief advisor to the head coach and offensive advisor.
Pavia looks back and believes it was God’s plan for him to end up in high school, that he needed it to be better prepared for a bigger stage. There he first started Bible studies with some teammates.
He said his faith has only grown with each step, including at New Mexico State, where he befriended Eli Stowers, who was then the quarterback he competed against and is now one of his favorite targets as a tight end for Vanderbilt .
Beck said Pavia and the much more subdued Stowers did not get along at first. Now they are roommates. Pavia said Stowers gave him some grief because he missed church last Sunday.
“I was like, man, I’m sorry. There was a lot of family in town and I didn’t get to see everyone after the game,” Pavia said.
Even after Pavia returned to work on Sunday to prepare for Vanderbilt’s next game against Kentucky, his brothers were in Nashville, still celebrating the biggest upset of a chaotic and unpredictable weekend in college football.
“In New Mexico, that’s what we do, you know? It would be a 2 year old’s birthday party and the party’s turn. It’s crazy,” said Diego Pavia. “To say the least, we had a very nice evening (Saturday).
Roel Pavia said he got about four hours of sleep this weekend and pretty much went from the bar to the airport to catch an early flight back to New Mexico on Monday morning.
“The best day of my life so far. And I had a few good ones,” Roel said on Monday with a hoarse voice that supported his story.
The Pavias are impossible to miss when Diego plays. Especially last Saturday, when Roel wore black and gold overalls, no shirt and a cowboy hat in the stands just behind the Vanderbilt bench, among a group of about 100 friends and family.
“I love his family. They were always the loudest people in the stadium,” said New Mexico Highland coach Kurt Taufa’asau, who was head coach at New Mexico Military the year the country won the juco championship with Pavia. Taufa’asau said he remembered a match where the referee turned on his microphone and asked the Pavias to please calm down.
“They are just a great family, who work extremely hard and have an edge. And there’s nothing wrong with that,” Kyser said. “In Albuquerque, New Mexico, you have to have an edge, and they do. And I think, besides just being a winner, Pavia’s best quality is that he has an edge over him.”
Diego Pavia, second from left, often has quite the cheering section. From left to right after a 2022 game in Wisconsin: brother Javier Pavia, Diego, brother Roel Pavia Jr., mother Antoinette Padilla and uncle Robert Padilla. (Thanks to Roel Pavia Jr.)
Beck and Kill insist that Pavia generally stays out of trouble. The most obvious misstep came last year, when a video of Pavia urinating on New Mexico’s practice field during the offseason surfaced on social media after the two teams played in September.
“I can’t tolerate much, and he got everything I had,” Kill said. “We took care of it inside. I won’t tell you what the situation was like, but I guarantee he paid the price for it.
When it comes to Pavia, it is usually those who doubted him who have paid the price.
“People can love it or hate it, but you know, his confidence speaks for itself, both on and off the field,” Roel Pavia said. “And when he says something and people don’t like it, like saying, Alabama can be beat — that’s exactly what they were on Saturday.”
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The Diego Pavia Experience has now gone mainstream. He appeared on “The Dan Patrick Show” on Monday and got a shoutout from his childhood idol, Heisman Trophy winner Johnny Manziel, later in the day. Pavia even received a few negative votes The Athletics‘s latest Heisman straw poll.
Adrian Tenorio, Pavia’s longtime friend, said his phone blew up so much that he couldn’t make or receive calls Monday after Pavia posted his number to X. He said he was just trying to help his friend stay focused on football.
For NIL questions please contact my agent
5055447267“Vandy we do gymnastics”‼️
— Diego Pavia (@diegopavia02) October 7, 2024
“I think we’re just on this rollercoaster together,” Tenorio said The Athletics on Monday evening. “He considers this next match the biggest match of his life. He knows that if he loses the next game, he will be a one-hit wonder. This is not a one-hit wonder. This is a superstar. This is where he needed to be.”
(Top image: Kelsea Petersen / The Athletics; Photos: Johnnie Izquierdo, Mike Mulholland, Carly Mackler/Stringer, via Getty Images)
