The Stephen A. Smith ShowInterview Only: Diego Pavia: Stephen A's smack talk on First Take inspired Alabama victory!
Stephen A. Smith is a New York Times Bestselling Author, Executive Producer, host of ESPN's First Take, and co-host of NBA Countdown.
He interviews Vanderbilt University quarterback Diego Pavia about the team’s thrilling win over Alabama. A former state wrestling champ, who is 5' 11" with zero football recruiting stars grabbed his 15 minutes of FAME.
I've been waiting to talk to this man.
My next guest has a story that sounds like it came from a Hollywood movie. He's five for eleven, a zero star recruit, beating the number one team in the country last week, Alabama forty to thirty five. Please welcome the starting quarterback of the Vanderbilt Commodores, the one and only Diego Pavia.
What's up man? How you doing, my brother? How's everything going?
Yeah? I appreciate you having me stephen A.
You know, I love feel good stories, I really really do. But I appreciate how you ruined my weekend. I ain't expect Alabama to be losing to a team that hadn't lost to in the last twenty three contests in the last forty years. But you come on the scene and all of a sudden just ruined everything for Alabama.
Major props to you. Gotta give it to you.
Talk to me about how much this victory meant to you and the program.
What has been like for you this last week.
It means a lot for sure, you know, I mean, I'm a juke kid. And then now finally we're getting rewarded for the hard work that we put in like, we ain't finished though. We want something way bigger than this, and you know this is just the start.
Talk to me about what the conversation was like for you guys going into this game against Alabama. Nobody gave y'all a chance to what have you? But you're known that you know, you got a lot of MOXI, you got a lot of courage. Your former wrest left I remember correctly. You don't back up from anybody. You love challenges.
Everybody brags about this mystique that you bring to any place that you touched.
So what were you doing with your teammates the week leading into the Alabama game?
Sure, I would be straight up. I was sitting on my couch.
I was watching I think it was a Liberty game, and I'm next to Eli, our tight end. I pop up to see, like, you know, ESPN what they got to say. I see Stephen a pop up talking about hell nah, don't don't take Vandy, and I was like, he must know, you know what I mean? And Eli's like I did. He's like, I haven't seen you lose by that many points ever?
Now. I was like, smart man, Well Betty.
Well I didn't I'm not mad dog Russ, so that man bets and loses money every week.
I keeps my money. I keeps my money. Okay, but I.
Didn't give y'all us snowballs. I didn't give y'all a snowballs chance.
In hell. I thought y'all were gonna lose by about thirty. I really really did.
Your damn show made me out to be a liar. Props to you before I go any further, I just want to. I wanted you to take a moment to tell the nation who you are when they think about Diego Pavia. If you had to describe yourself, Describe yourself to America, describe yourself to the football world.
I'm a winner, I'm electric. I'm gonna bring everything I got every single game. My family's gonna show out. We're gonna we're gonna play hard, and my family's gonna party hard after.
And that's how we run stuff around here.
And you say that you know what your family you know. I read up about your brothers, now I met. I read up about your brothers, and obviously you got a sister that's gonna be a star at New Mexico State, if I remember correctly, Am I right? And saying that she's gonna be a star in New Mexico State.
Am I right?
No, she's she's. She just started eighth grade, she got her first division on office at un M. She hasn't committed or anything, but you know she's she's. You think I'm good That girl is dominant, Like she's gonna be the next big thing.
She's gonna be up there.
Now, what do you believe you would be as a football player if you didn't have those family members of yours in the tender's raising holy hell and making all the noise in the world.
And psyching you up.
What would you be if you didn't have your parents and your brothers and everybody in the stands and it was just you playing without.
Those family members?
Dear, I say, intimidating folks in a very very beautiful way.
By the way, Yeah, now, if I have my family members like a lot of a lot of stuff. You know, that's where my mentality comes from. They set the standard and my others, you know, used to beat me up when I was little, but I hated losing and they knew that. We used to, you know, put our pads on before the season and go smash each other on the grass, you know, next to the house. And so that that really started. And my mom knows I hate losing. She hates losing. And you know, if I go home a loser that night, you know, like no one wants to talk to me. And that's just reality. And so I just got to keep the standard, keep going. You know, they pushed me to be a better person overall, but I can't I can't wait to get on this journey, continue this journey.
Hold up, did you just say even Mama don't speak to you when you lose? Is that what you just said? You just said that mama, even Mama doesn't speak to you when you lose.
Yeah, yeah, it's it's it's different. It's different.
Is different than the Pavia House. So it's different like that.
What about I mean, listen, your brothers, they gonna be there no matter what, and what have you. I remember reading the story where you talked about how they you know, they would kick your butt, but ultimately you got bigger than all of them and then you started beating it. But when did that start happen? When did you start beating up on your brothers?
It'd probably be like freshman year. We wrestled. All of us wrestled when we were little. I was a big, big recruit when I was very very little, like sixth grade. And then once I turned ninth grade, that's when they really stopped beating up on me. And I was able to hold my own and you know, not man handle them, but it I'd always be them.
What got you started with football.
My brother, so at six years you can only start playing football when you're seven. In New Mexico, my mom lit on my birth certificate when I was six so I could play up. I played there for like four years, and then when everyone went off, you know, to ahead to high school.
You know, I went back down to my own league.
And you know, I love football though, like I have a genuine love for it. I love I love the game. I just love what it love what it brings, you know, love the team, love the people I'm around. You know, I got to I got to meet people like you because of football.
You know, I'm listening and reading your story and I'm looking at you. I'm looking at one of your receivers, Eli st I was twenty five receptions three hundred and thirty three yards thus far this season, your leading receiver.
When you win Juco, If I remember correctly, he wasn't he the quarterback? Wasn't he ahead of you?
So he transferred in from New Mexico State thinking that he was gonna take my job, and then he ended up becoming a tight end because I want over the job. And you know, Eli's a freak athlete. People are gonna freak out how crazy that kid, How high he jumps, how fast he is when he comes pro that he's gonna jump if he's already not like that top ten pick, he's gonna jump up the board.
Now you talked about him and then reading stories and doing research and you talked about how your relationship is and what have you and how y'all gotten pretty close?
Uh?
Is he the one that's got you going to church? Is he the one that got on you for missing church one day?
Is that him?
That is? That is him? Uh?
You know that kid's different, He's wired different. He keeps my mental. I keep him on the game. So it's like a perfect balance. You know, we're roommates, so we just spend a lot of time together. And I don't got a car right now, so he's been taking me back and forth to practice.
So how does that work exactly?
Because you know, going to church and having the Good Lord in you, you know, that can take away some of the edge that you might want to bring on the football field.
Did you ever talk to Eli about that? Do you ever bring that to the equation and say to him, I gotta let I gotta I gotta let that rebel out in me or are you just acclimated yourself accordingly?
Yeah, so I tell him, I'm like, hey, like this music gets me in the mode to go out and do like and feel like the man, you know what I mean. He's like, nah, man, you can't be listening to like, listen to gospel music, listen to this, listen to this. And he gives me other options, variations, ask something that I need to tweak and flip the switch on.
But yeah, there's there's different ways around it that he's taught me.
But you know, Eli, you know, keeps that standard of God, which is you know, that's what I'm here for for the eternity.
I want to live in heaven with him.
I gotta try transition back to the football field in this regard. Dion Sanders, the one on only prime Time shout at you out on social media after the game. Now, you were being recruited by Prime Time at Jackson State and HBCU before landing in New Mexico State. Talk about what that recruitment was like and how you ended up making your decision to go elsewhere, you know, before ending up at Vanderbilt.
Yeah, he's he called me, and he was real. That's why I like, you know, Coach Prime. He said, you know, hey, I got a backup spot for you. My kids, the quarterback, Like, if you want to come, you could be the backup. And I was like, shoot, I feel like I'm better than than anyone in the world.
You know, That's how I feel.
But you know, for him keeping it real, you know, I appreciate people like him in the world that won't lie to you. And that's why I feel like, you know, Colorado, they turned over the page and they're look at them.
They're doing They're a very good team. They got everyone watching them.
But yeah, Coach Prime is a prime example of keeping it real, like a coach Kill them Too is kind of on the same page, you know what I mean.
And you talked about coach Lily because I mean, he came over with you damn near brought the tire staff it seemed like to come there with you. How comfortable has that made the transition for you? Talk to me about the character of those individuals and how helpful they've been to your career thus far, especially at Vanderbilt.
George Kill is like like my pops for real.
You know, when when I'm negotiating, when I was negotiating what I wanted coming to Vanderbilt, he was the one negotiating for me. And you know, whatever he says goes around this thing. But you know, coach Kill, he puts me in a in a position to go win every Saturday. And then you know, on the sideline he is keep me calm, telling me just play my game what I need to do, you know, just being the person that I am. And then you know, he brought the offensive coordinator coach back here too, and they just let me play free. Really, they let me check in and out of plays. And do you know, like an NFL quarterback would you.
Know, it's interesting you just brought up negotiate your deal for you. I've waited so long for the day where you can hear college athletes talk about because I am a propos of college athletes getting taken care of, because when you're getting robbed for decades and decades and decades and that is not to that's no longer going to be the case.
How has it been?
How do you feel about the whole n N I L name, image likeness, be it able to negotiate deals profit off of your exploits on the football field. Speak to what level of importance that is to you, that is the college college athletes, and what do you believe that's ultimately done for the sport of college football.
I feel like it's a business now, you know what I mean. It's no more fun football. You either win and you're in or you're losing and you're out. But I think the NIL should move more to an incentive base because there's kids getting paid who aren't even playing. But like you know, the kids who are are dominant, you know, they deserve that money. Who are bringing in money to the university, they should be getting paid high dollar. That's that's the reality. That's what I think is your move to more of an incentiate based and your production.
Did you want to go and renegotiate whatever it did you got after you beat Alabama last week?
Did you try that.
I wish it worked. I wish it worked that way. I wish it worked that way for sure. But yeah, my contracts it's already written.
I got you all in sixty that was your record versus top five teams before you win versus number one Alabama. What do you believe this victory has done for the program and what it ultimately has done for you.
I think people thought that we could do it. Outside of us, we knew we could do it, and now it just shifts the mindset of the fans. They needed, you know, come out more support. You know, our stadiums, you know, seventy five to eighty percent filled with the other fans.
But yeah, that that video is dope. That video is dope. You know.
The student section shows out though and on third down this week, and I got, honestly say, like, it got pretty loud.
And listen, Nashville's the hell of a town. I mean, you win it, you could do some things. And by the way, you good, You in good shape because I'll be damn that the Tennessee Titans gonna win for you.
I'll tell you that much.
Y'all might have a city, y'all might had a City on lock. Y'all keep winning because I ain't expected much from them. But I gotta ask you this. You got a game coming up against Kentucky. Both of y'all are three and two. You beat Alabama last week, but you turn around and lose this week, you gonna have people out there talking about y'all are one hit wonders or what have you.
What's your mindset?
What if you told your teammates about this upcoming game against Kentucky.
I told them, this is the biggest game of our lives right now. Where we want to go. We cannot, you know, afford to come out flat. We cannot afford to not bring our best football. You know, we gotta come out swing first, hit first, and you know lamb punches, counter punches, and just keep going every single time.
You know, next play, best play.
Some people joke, but not really joke.
They talk about Vanderbilt being the IVY League school of the South. That's what they say, right and you being the star quarterback at Vanderbilt, the face of the program right now, there's no question about that. What would you say to people who would considering comeing to Vanderbilt. I mean, if you had to recruit on behalf of the school.
What would you say?
First off, I'll tell you what I told Coach Lee when I first got here. I had my degree in Mexico State, and I told him I'm come here to do his school. I'm come here to play football. And that's just real.
That's what you would say, Playing it simple, Playing it simple. By the way, Johnny Manziel's surprised you're doing a live appearance on College Football Live. If I remember correctly right, What was that like for you?
That man's elite.
You guys know that in college he was the most stopball player, if not the greatest quarterback of all time in college. So for him to pop out, you know, show me some love. You know, that's a much respect to Johnny. And you know that's my guy. I watch his hids before the game and then watch my highlights after.
I'm looking at you last question here, I'm looking at your schedule. Man, you got a chance, you gotta pay chance, diego. I mean, if you show out against Kentucky, yeah, y'all got ball state after.
Then Texas is number one now in the nation.
I mean, my lord, if y'all end up being two of the top ranked two number one ranked teams in the nation in the same season. Could you imagine that this Auburn is South Carolina. You got LSU and Tennessee to close out the season. I mean, you show out in these games, Diego Pavia. I mean you a household name right now, but I can assure you it's gonna elevate to another level you handle your business against those schools.
Have you thought about that at all?
I'm worried about this game, and this game's at night, and you know what they say, the stars come out at night, so let's see it on Saturday.
Stars come out at night. I like that answer. I appreciate you, Diego Pavia.
Man.
Congratulations on your success. Man, thank you for coming on the show. Continue to do great things. I'm rooted for you. And listen, I hear that you know what you be trying to disguise your brothers with teazing you how you be trying to disguise your height. You really five to ten, but you be standing on your tippy toes. Don't worry about that. The tallest quarterback is the one who wins.
Tell them that. Tell them that.
Amen, Amen, you feel me.
All the best of you and man, I see you down the road. Congratulations again.
I appreciate you, Stephen A. Thane for having me.
Always man take care of yourself.
Congratulations the one and only Diego Pavia, the brother got a chance. Look at this schedule, ladies and gentlemen. I mean, just fantasize about this for a second. We ain't expect Vanderbilt to beat No damn Alabama and Jaylen Milroe on the boys.
We didn't expect that, but he did it. Forty to thirty five.
You come back and you beat Kentucky, You beat Texas at number one. You got yours or Manning at the quarterback spot and you win that game. Orben South Carolina's nothing to sneeze at LSU. You go beat them. You close out against Tennessee, you beat them. Diego Pavia. I mean, everybody will be talking about this brother if he pulls or I mean if they dare, I say, they win most, if not all, the rest of these games. That's just where I'm coming from. That's just where I'm coming from.
