Diego Pavia breaks down the moment Jerry Kill helped flip his commitment to Vanderbilt

Vanderbilt quarterback Diego Pavia is the talk of college football after helping lead an upset over No. 1 Alabama over the weekend, but he very nearly wound up elsewhere as a transfer out of New Mexico State.

Then a last-minute call to offensive coordinator Tim Beck right before he was set to head elsewhere changed everything.

“Coach (Jerry) Kill, I don’t know if you guys knew, but I wasn’t going to come here,” Pavia said Wednesday on College Football Live. “I was committed to Nevada in the recruiting process, and coach (Jeff) Choate is a really good coach at Nevada. So I called coach Beck and said, ‘Hey, I’m committed to Nevada.’ And he’s like hold on, I’m going to have someone call you.”

Diego Pavia was coming off a breakout season for the Aggies, having thrown for 2,973 yards and 26 touchdowns, while also rushing for 928 yards and seven scores.

He was a hot commodity in the transfer portal.

“And long story short, coach Kill called me and he says, ‘Hey, I’m in Mexico, I’m done drinking margaritas. I’m headed to Nashville and you’re coming with me,'” Pavia said. “I’m like, ‘It’s a done deal, I’ll see you in Nashville.'”

The rest, as they say, is history.

Diego Pavia has been lights out this season, leading Vanderbilt to three wins already. And the ‘Dores very nearly upset a top-10 Missouri team, too, falling in double overtime.

He’s been electric, the heart and soul of the team, an energetic and emotional leader.

As much as anything, though, Pavia credits his relationship with Kill and Beck for paving the way to a new opportunity in one of college football’s toughest conferences. It’s been a challenge and an opportunity Pavia has relished.

The ties to the staff? Those are long-lasting.

“Just to have them here with me, you know, it’s amazing. I just love coach Kill so much,” Diego Pavia said. “I look at him like a father figure. He’s just someone that I can go to with anything if I need help in whatever I do. They’re there for me. They know how I play, they know my play style, they know I’m going to make something out of nothing. They just are there for me in whatever I do.”