{"id":607083,"date":"2026-04-26T07:50:09","date_gmt":"2026-04-26T07:50:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/607083\/"},"modified":"2026-04-26T07:50:09","modified_gmt":"2026-04-26T07:50:09","slug":"controversial-vanderbilt-qb-diego-pavia-goes-undrafted","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/607083\/","title":{"rendered":"Controversial Vanderbilt QB Diego Pavia goes undrafted"},"content":{"rendered":"

Diego Pavia will have to wait to get a chance to prove his critics wrong after the Vanderbilt quarterback went undrafted during the 2026 NFL Draft this weekend in Pittsburgh.<\/p>\n

Going into this week\u2019s draft, it wasn\u2019t clear where the QB would land, and he\u2019s the first Heisman Trophy finalist since Jordan Lynch in 2014 to go undrafted, according to The Athletic<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Pavia visited with the Panthers earlier this month, and earlier in the week, ESPN NFL insider Adam Schefter reported that other teams \u201chad been doing their own work on him.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"VanderbiltDiego Pavia during Vanderbilt\u2019s pro day on March 20, 2025. AP<\/p>\n

Pavia is coming off a season where he was the runner-up for the Heisman Trophy and threw for 3,539 yards and 29 touchdowns while leading Vanderbilt to a ReliaQuest Bowl appearance and the program\u2019s first 10-win season.\u00a0<\/p>\n

He was named First-Team All-SEC and First-Team All-American, plus SEC Offensive Player of the Year, and won the Johnny Unitas Golden Arm Award as the best upperclassmen quarterback in college football.<\/p>\n

The 5-foot-10 quarterback previously earned SEC Newcomer of the Year honors in 2024 after transferring from New Mexico State.<\/p>\n

Pavia helped turn around a Vanderbilt program that had won two games in 2023 and led them to a seven-win season in 2024 and a 10-win campaign last season.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cCan the kid play football?\u201d Vanderbilt teammate Eli Stowers said about Pavia during the school\u2019s pro day.<\/a> \u201cAnd Diego was the best player in college football last year. He led the entire country in total yards. I mean, he won 10 games and got us to the point where we had two winning seasons back-to-back after going 2-10 the year before.\u201d<\/p>\n

Still, there were questions regarding how Pavia\u2019s game will translate to the pros and his size has also raised some concerns.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"VanderbiltDiego Pavia turned Vanderbilt into a national contender. Getty Images<\/p>\n

And his confidence has gotten him into some hot water.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Pavia told reporters during the combine: \u201cOne thing about me is I don\u2019t care what people think about me.\u201d<\/p>\n

He also ignited a small firestorm when he wrote \u201cF-All the voters\u201d on a social media post after the Heisman Trophy ceremony.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Pavia later apologized for the post.\u00a0<\/p>\n

One NFC scouting director had told NFL Network\u2019s Tom Pelissero<\/a> that the \u201cschtick gets old\u201d around Pavia.<\/p>\n

\u201cLittle bit of Johnny Football (Manziel) \u2014 it\u2019s more lore and college bulls\u2013t than it is really true mystique or allure or whatever,\u201d the scouting director said. \u201cI just don\u2019t think he\u2019s overly talented. He\u2019ll bounce around on a couple teams, just because he\u2019s competitive. I think he\u2019s smart and he\u2019ll learn it and all that stuff. But you\u2019ve got a runaround, RPO, college quarterback with an average arm.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Diego Pavia will have to wait to get a chance to prove his critics wrong after the Vanderbilt…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":607084,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[349,17351,196077,99,17358],"class_list":{"0":"post-607083","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-nfl","9":"tag-nfl-draft","10":"tag-nfl-draft-2026","11":"tag-sports","12":"tag-vanderbilt-commodores"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/607083","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=607083"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/607083\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/607084"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=607083"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=607083"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=607083"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}