Through five weeks of the college football season, Clark Lea and the Vanderbilt Commodores have been quietly dominant. While they haven’t faced the toughest competition, Vanderbilt does have two wins over Power Conference teams and has taken care of business in convincing fashion outscoring opponents by an average of 31.4 points.
Offensively, the Commodores have been extremely explosive, averaging 495 yards per game and ranking first in all of college football in scoring at 49 points per game. Much of that success is in large part due to the incredible play of quarterback Diego Pavia.
After taking the college football world by storm last year, Pavia has made it impossible to disrespect his play or ignore his name when it comes to the Heisman conversation this season. Through five games, he's already thrown for 1,211 yards and 13 touchdowns, on top of nearly 300 rushing yards and two rushing scores. This includes a Week 5 performance against Utah State that shot him all the way up into the top 10 in Heisman betting odds, as he went 26/34 for 321 yards and five touchdowns, and also had 79 rushing yards and another score on the ground.
When looking at the Heisman conversation this early in the season, racking up crazy stats against lesser competition is great, but what matters most is performing well in, and winning big games. Pavia will have the perfect opportunity to do just that in Week 6, as he and No. 16 Vanderbilt travel to Tuscaloosa to take on No. 10 Alabama.
The Crimson Tide are fresh off a massive win over Georgia, just like they were last season when Pavia and Vanderbilt pulled off the shocking upset. This time around it will definitely be much more difficult with the game being played at Alabama, but if there is one thing we know about Diego Pavia, it’s that he is certainly up for the challenge and will once again look to thrive in the underdog role.
Now I’m sure Pavia is much more interested in the way his team performs and the Commodores winning, but he has now firmly established himself as a name to watch in the Heisman conversation. With the stats he has already accumulated, and if he is able to once again perform well and beat Alabama, we could very well be looking at a new Heisman frontrunner in Diego Pavia.