The 2026 National Football League (NFL) Draft was a stellar week in the heart of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The league’s next stars were selected, and the future of the NFL was being written pick by pick. Heisman Trophy finalists such as Fernando Mendoza and Jeremiyah Love were quickly some of the top recruits to be snagged off the list, but one recruit fell straight to the bottom: Vanderbilt University’s quarterback, Diego Pavia. Pavia’s rollercoaster of a career came crashing down as he went undrafted in the 2026 NFL Draft.

     Diego Pavia’s draft stock crash is historic, as he was the first Heisman finalist since Jordan Lynch in 2014. While this letdown might be a career-defining moment, Pavia’s college football path was filled with headlines just like this. Coming out of high school, Pavia had zero Division One offers, so he decided to go the junior college route and attend New Mexico Military Institute in Roswell, New Mexico, per Bradley Benson of KRQE Sports. During this time, Pavia led the NMMI Broncos to a National Junior College Athletic Association (NJCAA) National Championship victory in 2021, while throwing for over seventeen hundred yards and twenty-one touchdown passes and rushing for seven hundred yards and seven rushing touchdowns over the course of the season, per NMMI Athletics. With this success, Pavia transferred up to Division One at New Mexico State University. During his two years there, he led the Aggies to a 17-11 record and was awarded Conference USA Offensive Player of the Year in 2023, per NMSU Athletics. Pavia would then leave his home state to take over the Vanderbilt University Commodores offense and face the tough Southeastern Conference (SEC) schedules ahead. 

     Vanderbilt has never been known for its football program, as it has been a punching bag for the SEC in recent history. This would change with Pavia at the helm, as he led the Commodores to a 7-6 record and a Birmingham Bowl victory in 2024, marking their first postseason victory in over a decade, per Zachary Port of the Vanderbilt Hustler. After this successful 2024 season, Pavia would face his first controversy: the eligibility rules. His second season at Vanderbilt would mark his sixth season in college football (2024 season covered from COVID eligibility rules), but only his fourth in Division One. Because of this, Pavia argued that his year at NMMI should not count towards his eligibility, as the NJCAA (the association NMMI is in) is a separate entity from the National Collegiate Athletics Association (NCAA), and claimed that his time in the NJCAA should be treated like other athletes who go on mission trips or serve our country, per ESPN. This case would make its way to the Supreme Court, where it would be granted a preliminary injunction after the 2025 season, which gave Pavia his sixth and final year of eligibility. With this, he would return to Nashville to help keep the Commodores rolling.

     During his 2025 season, the Commodores kept winning, and people started buying into the hype, as the Commodores reached as high as ninth on the Week Nine AP Top 25 Poll. With this success came an expanding bubble that was about to pop: Pavia’s ego. Pavia would become good friends with former Texas A&M quarterback and National Football League (NFL) flop Johnny Manziel, where Manziel would be seen on Vanderbilt sidelines with Pavia’s number two jersey, hyping up the fans and silencing the doubters. This might look like a good mentorship, but Manziel’s influence on Pavia would turn Pavia into an egotistical and arrogant player to be around. Not just Pavia was affected, as his family felt the fame, leading to multiple instances of verbal and physical altercations between his family and opposing fans. This was when the buzz around Nashville flipped; it was no longer Vanderbilt’s success, but Pavia’s success, and a majority of this success was attributed to Pavia rather than the twenty-one other guys starting for Vanderbilt. The Commodores would finish with their first ten-win season in program history (per Vanderbilt Athletics) and would receive a bid to the Reliaquest Bowl.

     This in-season success would lead to some post-season accolades, as Pavia would be voted onto the Heisman Trophy finalist panel. At the ceremony, Pavia’s bubble was starting to burst, as the other three finalists (Mendoza, Sayin, and Love) towered over Pavia, which led to social media threads questioning his official six-foot height listing. To add insult to injury, Mendoza would take home the trophy, which Pavia did not take very well… Pavia would first take to social media, posting threads against the voters and talking about how they(the voters) messed up in their choice (of Mendoza). Pavia would then show his outrage in person, as he was seen around New York with signs stating harsh statements about Mendoza and Indiana University as a whole. Pavia would eventually go on to apologize for these actions, but this was the first domino to fall in his draft stock. As Pavia declared for the NFL Draft, he decided not to pick up an agent and represent himself to teams, already setting him back against other recruits. Along with this, Pavia’s height came back into question as his six-foot listing was proven false as he came in at five feet nine inches. This would make him the shortest starting quarterback in NFL history, per ESPN. Overall, Pavia’s last six months had sent his draft stock diving down, and the week of the NFL Draft was imminent.  

     As the recruits were picked one by one, Pavia hosted a draft party and had his selection of hats from every NFL team, but as the final picks were made, Pavia sat teamless. This would mark the second year of an egotistical quarterback dropping in draft stock, as Shedeur Sanders would drop down to the fifth round before finally being picked by the Cleveland Browns. While Shedeur showed some signs of success within his rookie year, Diego Pavia was still struggling to find a spot to play, eventually signing a three-year deal with the Ravens two days after the draft. This new generation of Name, Image, and Likeness (NIL) has boosted the egos of many collegiate athletes, with all of the money and accolades that come with it. While most athletes can learn to control it, Diego Pavia decided to make that his mantra. While it might look good for headlines and clicks, NFL programs see it and run away, and that is the problem with Pavia.