Skip to main content
texas logo

2025 Opponent Offseason Storylines: Diego Pavia's eligibility battle means he'll get another crack at Texas

Joe Cookby:Joe Cook•05/08/25•

josephcook89

diego-pavia-suggests-vanderbilt-could-be-national-championship-winning-team-in-2025
Vasha Hunt-Imagn Images

Diego Pavia‘s pioneering off the field is critical to the Commodores’ ability in 2025 to conquer new seas as Clark Lea and company strive to keep Vanderbilt’s trajectory ascendant.

[Sign up for Inside Texas TODAY and get the BEST Longhorns scoop!]

Pavia’s presence on the 2024 roster not only boosted Vanderbilt above .500 for the first time since 2013, it also helped the SEC bottom-dweller program earn a place in the AP Poll for the first time in 11 seasons and, of course, defeat the No. 1 Alabama Crimson Tide in one of the games of the year in college football.

Pavia gave Texas all the Longhorns could handle when the ‘Dores hosted the Horns in Nashville. He was 16-for-29 for 143 yards and two touchdowns, but also had two interceptions. On the ground he tallied 16 carries for 67 yards and a score, accounting for 210 of Vanderbilt’s 269 total yards. As Texas and other schools learned, his ability to manipulate Jerry Kill‘s spread option offense and find first-team All-SEC tight end Eli Stowers elevated Vanderbilt from doormat to schematic challenge.

It was thought that the 2024 season would be Pavia’s last in college, but an injunction against the NCAA’s counting of junior college playing seasons like Pavia’s toward NCAA eligibility granted in December has the former New Mexico State signal-caller and current college football darling back for one more campaign thanks to success in the courts.

When asked about the subject in December, Texas head coach Steve Sarkisian became the topic of a classic On3 graphic because of his answer.

Pavia’s return, which coincides with the returns of leading receiver Stowers and second leading rusher Sedrick Alexander, mean the Commodores have several critical pieces back on their offense. Vanderbilt ranked well in Bill Connelly’s pre-spring portal window returning production rankings, at No. 8 overall and No. 28 on offensive returning production. The Commodores brought in 20 transfers, a class ranked ahead of other SEC schools by On3 like in-state rival Tennessee, Mississippi State, Georgia, Oklahoma, Arkansas, and Alabama. Reasons for that lofty ranking vary, Georgia may not have needed a volume of transfers like Lea’s program did after all, but quality up-transfers from the FCS and other rotational Power Conference players like Texas’ own Aaron Bryant give Vanderbilt something to work with in 2025.

The schedule is tough for Vanderbilt. It usually is anyway. A renovated FirstBank Stadium hosts Charleston Southern before Lea’s crew heads to Lane Stadium to face a Virginia Tech team that would like to erase memories of being Pavia’s launching pad in 2024. Then they go to another tough environment at South Carolina before hosting a Georgia State team that beat them in Atlanta last year.

The non-conference slate finishes with Utah State, then it’s a trip to Alabama against a program looking to punish the memory of 2024.

Vanderbilt heads to Texas after two home games versus LSU and Missouri to start the month of November. Even after last year’s 27-24 win by the Longhorns, the Commodores lead the all time series 8-4-1. The only time VU traveled to Austin was in 1903, when the teams tied 5-5.

Texas won’t be looking to exact revenge for 1899, 1905, 1906, 1921, 1922, 1925, 1926, or 1928. But in order not to slip up ahead of a the bye week preceding the trip to Athens, they’ll have to make note of Pavia in the Vanderbilt offense just as they did last year.

[Order THE LONGHORN ALPHABET today and teach your little ones the A to Z’s of Texas Football!]

Law students around the country might end up studying Pavia’s work in the courtroom, Texas is going to have to study Pavia’s work on the field in the film room.

2025 Opponent Offseason Storylines

You may also like