Before he arrived at Vanderbilt in 2024, his most prestigious stop yet, Diego Pavia was already a champion.
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Pavia won the NJCAA National Football Championship with the New Mexico Military Institute in 2021. That set him on a long and winding path that brought him to the Commodores and now to a spot as a Heisman Trophy finalist. Going from junior college to being considered one of the best players in the nation is quite the journey.
But Pavia, who led Vanderbilt to a 10-2 record that saw them fall just short of the CFP this year, has been recognized as talented from a young age. At least, that’s what the New Mexico native believes about himself.
“At a young age, they used to check my birth certificate. (Laughs) True story. Because I played older,” Pavia recalled on The Pivot podcast.
“My mom lied on my birth certificate. When I was six years old, the minimum age you had to be was seven. So my mom lied on my birth certificate, and I played up. But they didn’t let me be the quarterback,” he added.
Pavia said the reason he couldn’t play quarterback was that the coach’s son was playing the position. Fine. He played running back instead. And anyone who knows seven-year-old football knows you don’t throw the ball much anyway. So he dominated. Eventually, in fifth grade, he moved back down to his own age group. And it was, as he calls it, “a murder”.
“We used to draw up plays and our coach used to tell us, ‘Hey, get the ball to this guy, get the ball to this guy.’ I’m keeping that thing… And I was the punt returner too. I used to tell everyone, ‘Hey, Ima go right, even if the lane is open, I’m coming back all the way, just so they could do the crack back block… Those were some of the best times I had playing football, when those hits were legal.”
Despite playing quarterback at a prestigious SEC program, Pavia has never lost that hard-nosed mentality. It’s a big reason he’s been able to lead Vanderbilt to its first-ever 10-win season, just two years removed from a 2023 campaign that saw the program go 2-10. Pavia wins wherever he goes.
Diego Pavia has helped turn around three college programs
The 23-year-old won that Juco championship at the Military Institute, and he was so impressive in the 2021 championship game that he convinced the coaches at New Mexico State to give him a shot there in 2022.
After 20 losing seasons in 22 years for New Mexico State, Pavia led the Aggies to back-to-back winning seasons for the first time since the 1960s in 2022-2023. Their 10-5 mark in 2023 was just the second time in program history that they had earned double-digit wins.
Pavia may not be the tallest, or the fastest, or the strongest, but he has what they call that “dog” in him. He just wants it more than his opponents, and he’s willing to go the extra mile.
That’s why he was able to lead the SEC in completion percentage (71.2), passing TDs (27), yards per attempt (9.4), and passer rating (171.5) in his college football swan song in 2025. He also threw for nearly 3,200 yards and rushed for over 800 with another nine TDs to boot.
And at +600 odds, Pavia is the only one the sportsbooks are giving any chance to upset Indiana’s Fernando Mendoza for the Heisman. The winner will be announced on December 13 at 8 PM E.T. on ESPN.
Pavia’s final college football game will be the ReliaQuest Bowl on December 31, where the Commodores will take on the No. 23 Iowa Hawkeyes.
