Diego Pavia rolled into New Mexico Military Institute with bleached blond hair, earrings, chains around his neck and a tank top.
Brimming with the confidence of star quarterback and the toughness and determination of a state champion wrestler, Pavia made quite a first impression.
“Pauly? Pauly D, or whatever his name is? Diego would have 100 percent fit in with ‘Jersey Shore,’” said Chase Kyser, who was the offensive coordinator at the junior college when Pavia arrived in 2020.
The dye job is gone now. The bravado and fearlessness, characteristics that have not always worked in Pavia’s favor, have only grown stronger. With a fiercely supportive and always-ready-for-a-party family behind him, Pavia has become exactly the player and leader he always knew he could be — even though 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 fans at New Mexico State who landed at Vanderbilt via transfer this offseason, to one of this season’s breakout stars.
Pavia led the Commodores to a stunning 40-35 upset of Alabama with a performance that was equal parts virtuoso and grungy, precise (16 for 20 for 252 yards) and gritty (20 carries for 52 yards). He celebrated Vandy’s first victory 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 tearing down the goal posts at FirstBank Stadium.
Looks like the Vandy goalposts are heading down Broadway pic.twitter.com/ZPzMzKgcRB
— Sam Shamburger (@shamnadoes) October 6, 2024
“It’s something I knew I could do. And that’s not me being cocky. That’s just me being, you know, who I am,” Pavia told The Athletic Sunday night. “But I feel like every time I touch the field, I’m the best player on the field and no matter who we play, you know, that’s just who I am.”
I’m sorry for cussing last night but, God you are the TRUTH AND ALL THE GLORY GOES TO YOU!! For yall that don’t know him, get to know him. HE IS MAGICAL‼️
— Diego Pavia (@diegopavia02) October 6, 2024
Those who have believed in Pavia, the ones who turned out to be smart or fortunate enough to give him a shot, say the swagger and in-your-face playing style are balanced by a tenacious work ethic and infectious positivity.
“For all that people talk 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 game as a senior.
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Pavia credits his mother, Antoinette Padilla, for instilling in him a simple philosophy: If you want something, you work for it.
“My mom, she’s hard-hat, lunch-pail. She grew up with 13 brothers and sisters in a single home,” Pavia said.
Not until he was older, Pavia said, did he come to realize those nights his mother said she wasn’t hungry and ate only a little at dinner, she was making sure her kids 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 offer from New Mexico.
Diego said his older brothers would give him a hard time when he was young, which led to some frustration and occasional tears.
But not for long.
“He would whip 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 got bigger than us.”
Diego drew interest from small colleges in both wrestling and football out of high school, but not at the level he felt he deserved.
“The only time I ever saw him frustrated is when a coach would come to meet him and pull him out of class, and Diego would be on his damn tiptoes trying to make himself look 6 feet,” Wallin said. “I remember laughing so hard because I think Northern Arizona was here looking at him, and he’s up on his tiptoes, and I kept whispering. ‘They’re gonna know Diego. They’re gonna find out really quick that you’re 5-10 or whatever.’”
For the record, Vanderbilt lists Pavia at 6 feet tall.
Pavia was especially dismayed by the lack of interest from his hometown school, New Mexico, which was winding down its Bob Davie era and hired Danny Gonzales as head coach in 2019.
“They called my head coach and basically said that they didn’t want me because they thought I was arrogant,” Pavia said. “But there’s a difference between arrogance and confidence, and so they took it the wrong way. Those coaches aren’t there no more at UNM.”
Kyser and then-New Mexico Military head coach Joe Forchtner liked what they saw and were happy to have Pavia, but even then it wasn’t until the week before the first game — NMMI’s 2020 season was pushed to the spring of 2021 because of the pandemic — that Pavia went from No. 3 on the depth chart to rotating with another quarterback on the first team.
By Game 2, the job was his. NMMI went to a bowl game in Pavia’s first year and won a juco national title in Year 2.
“What set him apart from everybody, and I think still does, is that everybody just rallies around him,” Forchtner said. “You know, when he’s on the field, everybody 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 were scouting that juco title game — watching on TV from a Hooters, Kill said — it was Iowa Western’s quarterback who was their target.
“As we’re watching the game, we’re looking at each other, we’re like, 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 upset at Auburn last year — and reach two bowl games, a remarkable feat for a program that had only played in four bowls previously.
This past offseason, Vanderbilt coach Clark Lea went to Las Cruces to talk to Beck about becoming the Commodores’ offensive coordinator. Lea ended up bringing 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 at Northern Illinois and Minnesota, was given the title chief consultant to the head coach and offensive advisor.
Pavia looks back and believes it was God’s plan for him to end up at junior college, that he needed it to be better prepared for a bigger stage. It was there he first began 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 then was the quarterback he was competing against and now is one of his favorite targets as a tight end for Vanderbilt.
Beck said Pavia and the far more subdued Stowers did not get along at first. Now they’re roommates. Pavia said Stowers gave him some grief for missing church this past Sunday.
“I was like, man, I’m sorry. A lot of family was in town and I didn’t get to see everyone after the game,” Pavia said.
Even after Pavia went back to work Sunday, preparing for Vanderbilt’s next game against Kentucky, his brothers were out 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’d be a 2-year-old’s birthday party and the party’s freaking turnt. It’s insane,” Diego Pavia said. ”We had a really good time (Saturday) night, to say the least.”
Roel Pavia said he slept about four hours over the weekend and pretty much went from the bar to the airport to catch an early flight back to New Mexico on Monday morning.
“Best day of my life so far. And I had some good ones,” Roel said Monday with a gravelly voice that backed up his story.
The Pavias are impossible to miss when Diego is playing. Especially so last Saturday, with Roel sporting black and gold overalls, no shirt, and a cowboy hat in the stands right 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 it won the juco national championship with Pavia. Taufa’asau said he remembers a game where the referee turned on his mic and asked the Pavias to please take it down a notch.
“They’re just a great family, who’s extremely hard-working that has an edge to them. And there’s nothing wrong with that,” Kyser said. “In Albuquerque, New Mexico, you kind of have to have an edge about you, and they have that. And I think, ultimately, next to just being a winner, I think that’s (Pavia’s) best quality, is that he’s got an edge to him.”
Diego Pavia, second from left, often has quite the cheering section. From left to right after a 2022 game at Wisconsin: brother Javier Pavia, Diego, brother Roel Pavia Jr., mother Antoinette Padilla and uncle Robert Padilla. (Courtesy of Roel Pavia Jr.)
Beck and Kill insist 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 emerged on social media after the two teams had played in September.
“I don’t put up with a lot, and he got all I had,” Kill said. “We took care of it inside. I won’t tell you what the situation was, but I guarantee it, he paid the price for it.”
When it comes to Pavia, it’s usually been those who doubt him who have paid the price.
“People can love it or hate it, but you know, his confidence speaks for itself on and off the field,” Roel Pavia said. “And if he says something and people don’t like it, like saying, you know, Alabama is beatable — 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 later in the day from his boyhood idol, Heisman Trophy winner Johnny Manziel. Pavia even received a few down-ballot votes in The Athletic’s latest Heisman straw poll.
Adrian Tenorio, Pavia’s longtime friend, said his phone blew up to the point where he couldn’t make or take calls Monday after Pavia posted his number on X. He said he’s just trying to help his friend stay focused on football.
For NIL inquiries hit my Agent
5055447267“Vandy we turnt”‼️
— Diego Pavia (@diegopavia02) October 7, 2024
“I guess we’re just riding this roller coaster together,” Tenorio told The Athletic on Monday night. “He’s taking this next game as the biggest game of his life. He knows if he loses this next game, they’re going to be like, he was a one-hit wonder. This is not a one-hit wonder. This is a superstar. This is where he was meant to be.”
(Top illustration: Kelsea Petersen / The Athletic; Photos: Johnnie Izquierdo, Mike Mulholland, Carly Mackler / Stringer, via Getty Images)