INDIANAPOLIS – Diego Pavia is accustomed to improvising.
In his ascension to Heisman Trophy runner-up and one of college football’s biggest stars, the Vanderbilt quarterback made a habit of breaking structure. Embracing a frenetic energy became part of his signature style as he pushed a long listless Commodores program to its first 10-win season and new levels of visibility.
To reach the NFL, however, Pavia is taking a more concerted approach.
“I’m a man on a mission,” Pavia said Feb. 27 at the NFL scouting combine.
And it’s a sizable one.
In Indianapolis, Pavia is making a final push to teams that he’s a worthwhile investment at quarterback. In addition to meeting with coaches and evaluators, he’ll go through a full on-field workout Feb. 28. His testing, however, will wait for Vanderbilt’s pro day in March.
Showing himself off yet again might seem like a superfluous step for a sixth-year senior who is less than a month removed from the Senior Bowl. For Pavia, however, it’s a necessary one. The dynamic signal-caller stands in sharp contrast to his similarly accomplished passing peers in his expected draft stock, with many analysts projecting him to be an undrafted free agent clinging to a faint hope of being picked in the later rounds.
At the Senior Bowl, he measured in at 5 feet, 9 ⅞ inches and 198 pounds. Unofficially, that measurement would make him the shortest quarterback to reach the NFL since the 1970 merger. With draft analysts also having persistent concerns about his arm strength and ability to attack defenses while remaining in the pocket, Pavia is facing levels of doubt even he’s not accustomed to.
Yet Pavia has a simple answer for anyone who doubts his ability to acclimate to the next level.
“Turn on the tape. It’s not like we’re not playing these guys who are going in the first round, second round, on Saturdays in the SEC.”
And as Pavia puts the final touches on his preparation, he remains unswayed by any scrutiny.
“If you saw how much I put into this, you would see where I get my confidence from,” Pavia said.
Few people understand Pavia’s conviction better than Eli Stowers.
That side of the quarterback was part of what spurred the tight end, who only became Pavia’s primary target after losing out to him in the starting quarterback competition at New Mexico State, to follow the passer in transferring to Vanderbilt in 2024. They became roommates for those two years, during which they developed a close bond despite their polar-opposite personalities.
“You see confidence in him that’s special,” said Stowers, who in 2025 won the John Mackey Award as college football’s top tight end. “You see confidence in him that you don’t see in a lot of players. His confidence spread out throughout the whole team. We went into the season believing that we could win every game. I think that’s what made us be successful.”
Yet Stowers has also seen where that confidence can be interpreted differently by others, including the public at large.
“He’s very blunt in a way that he approaches his public persona. He just kind of says whatever he wants sometimes. A lot of us have thoughts that we shouldn’t be saying in the media, and sometimes he just says those things. But as a person and who he really is, he’s an amazing guy, and I love him to death.”
Pavia put it more succinctly.
“One thing about me is I don’t care what people think about me,” he said.
Yet he might need to care about the impression NFL coaches and general managers have of him.
While football-centric matters have remained the focus of team meetings, Pavia acknowledged that he had been asked about his distinct personality. Still, he saw his rise from junior college quarterback to Southeastern Conference phenom as a selling point.
“I feel like a lot of teams love the tenacity, the fight – the life of an underdog,” Pavia said. “Yeah, they ask questions. But if you look back on my record, there ain’t nothing on my record.”
Pavia’s bold demeanor took a new tenor, however, after he finished second to Indiana’s Fernando Mendoza – the expected No. 1 overall pick in April’s draft – for the Heisman Trophy. He wrote “F-All THE VOTERS” on his Instagram story with a thumbs down emoji and “BUT … FAMILY FOR LIFE.” A video later emerged of Pavia at a club giving the middle finger to a sign that read “(expletive) INDIANA.” He later apologized, saying it was “painful” to come up short while adding he “did not represent myself the way I wanted to.”
Thus far, no teams have asked him about the incident, Pavia said.
“Not that they don’t care, but they know the situation already,” Pavia said.
Any criticisms of Pavia shouldn’t touch on the quarterback’s work ethic, Stowers said.
“I don’t think people understand how hard of a worker he is and how good a leader he is. That’s what you want in a quarterback,” Stowers said. “He will not let anybody outwork him. He’s gonna hold the standard and hold people up to the standard as well.”
As a roommate, Pavia ended up being plenty compatible with the more soft-spoken Stowers. Whether it was on the field or at home, the tight end knew he could always count on his quarterback.
“He’s a reliable dude,” Stowers said. “You ask him to do anything for you and he’ll do it. If you need him to do anything for you, he’ll do it.”
Might that mentality extend to a potential position switch in the pros?
Some might see a player with more than 3,000 career rushing yards and 31 touchdowns as a potential gadget weapon and all-purpose threat. When asked how he would respond to a request to shift his role, Pavia neither embraced the idea nor ruled it out.
“We’ll cross that bridge when it gets there,” Pavia said. “Right now, I’m just focused on this process and tomorrow and getting ready for pro day.”
No matter how far-fetched it might seem or the self-belief it might require, the mission remains the same.
Said Pavia: “I’m hoping to show (teams) that when you get me, you get an NFL quarterback.”
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