Shut him down and the Volunteers win.
One of the most impactful transfers in the country is a big reason for Vanderbilt’s big turnaround this season. Diego Pavia ended up following his old head coach Jerry Kill to Nashville, where Kill took a job with the Commodores as a consultant.
About ten months later, Pavia led Vanderbilt to their first win over Alabama since 1984. Clark Lea has his team bowl eligible for the first time since 2018. It’s the first time Lea has been bowl eligible in his four seasons in Nashville.
A large reason why is the option-heavy offense led by Pavia. The New Mexico State transfer has over 600 yards on the ground to go along with 2,000 passing yards. He’s thrown 16 touchdowns against just three interceptions on the year.
“Diego is a special player,” Josh Heupel said this week. “In the read game, first-level players, running triple option off of it, all type of read schemes, drop-back situations, extending and scrambling and making plays — he’s done a really good job for them. He’s one of the keys to the game for us. Certainly defensively he’s the key to the game.”
Pavia’s 671 rushing yards leads the team. Last year at New Mexico State, Pavia just narrowly missed out on a 3,000/1,000 yard season. The veteran brought his talents to the SEC, and has put up very similar numbers. Tennessee will have their hands full on Saturday trying to slow down the read option game, along with containing him in the pocket on passing downs.
“You can’t just let him sit back there, but when you’re applying pressure, you’ve got to do a great job of having lane integrity and not letting him get out the backside of the pocket, and that happened to us a couple times the other night (against UTEP),” Heupel said. “Within your twist games, you’ve got to continue to keep your lane integrity as well, and that happens off of your pressures too.”
Pavia is banged up, still working through injuries to his shoulder and knee. Lea even turned to his backup quarterback Nate Johnson a couple of times last week against LSU to shoulder some of the load.
There’s one real key to this game — Tennessee has to stop the quarterback rushing attack. They certainly have the front to do it. That’s where gap responsibility comes into play. The Volunteers struggled with that against Mississippi State, and even against UTEP. They’ll have to be on top of their game against Diego and Vandy on Saturday afternoon.