It’s fitting that Halloween falls during Vanderbilt-Auburn Week, as Tigers head coach Hugh Freeze is about to get his third straight visit from nightmare Diego Pavia.
A total of four schools and two time zones, Pavia, now the Commodores’ quarterback, has chased, harassed and harassed Freeze. This weekend the two meet for the third year in a row as Vanderbilt travels to the Plains. It’s not a match anyone would have circled ahead of the season, but it’s a match that both teams desperately need, for very different reasons.
Vanderbilt and Auburn are literally mirror images of each other at this point. The Commodores are 5-3, the Tigers 3-5. Vanderbilt is a historic doormat experiencing unprecedented success in the modern era; Auburn is a former national champion who has been looking for answers for a decade. Vanderbilt defeated Alabama; Auburn is on a three-game losing streak in the Iron Bowl. Oh, and while Auburn is still looking for answers at quarterback. Vanderbilt has found a peer in Pavia.
“I’m tired of seeing that quarterback,” Freeze joked earlier this week. “I’ve had enough of him.”
You can understand why. In 2022, Pavia and New Mexico State defeated Freeze’s Liberty squad 49-14. All Pavia did was pass for three touchdowns and run for three more, throwing for 214 yards and rushing for 125. As shocking as that was, the next year was even more shocking.
Freeze jumped from Liberty to Auburn before the 2023 season. Late in the year, Pavia’s Aggies stormed Auburn and proceeded to oust the Tigers by a score of 31-10. Pavia threw for “only” three touchdowns and rushed for “only” 35 yards.
“Last year, when we played Pavia, the first time we touched the ball was in the first quarter, I believe, with 5:05 to go,” Freeze said. “That’s uncomfortable. … He moves and makes plays and is smart and smart and tough and, again, he makes everyone do his assignment on every play or you get burned. It’s three yards here, even on a broken play, and it’s four yards, and it’s third and three and they get three and a half.
So if you’re keeping track, Pavia has two wins, nine touchdowns, and an overall score of 80-24 against Freeze-led squads. Yeah, we’d be pretty sick of him too.
Pavia entered the transfer portal at the end of last season. When former New Mexico State head coach Jerry Kill joined the Vanderbilt staff as an advisor, Pavia decided his future also lay in Nashville and transferred to the ‘Dores. The move has paid off immensely; Pavia was completely untouchable in Vandy’s win over Alabama, and Texas struggled to put him and the Commodores aside last week.
“What a competitor he is and the job that (head coach) Clark Lea and his staff have done there,” Freeze said. elite is so impressive.”
With two conference losses in a stacked SEC, Vanderbilt is likely on the outside looking at a playoff berth. But the fact that the Commodores aren’t at the bottom and looking up is a huge improvement, and Pavia’s improvisational genius and unpredictability have helped burnish Vanderbilt’s once-irrelevant reputation. After that win in Alabama, no one is taking the Commodores for granted this year.
Would the same be true for Auburn? Under Freeze, the team has struggled mightily, unable to find any sort of identity on either side of the ball. Before last week’s win over Kentucky, Auburn had lost four straight SEC games, and the grumbling in the stands and suites of Jordan-Hare Stadium had begun.
Freezing can point to next year as a sign that better days are on the horizon; the Tigers currently have that. (Caveat: They’re still behind three SEC teams — Alabama, LSU and Georgia — and Ohio State.) If Freeze can hang on to all those recruits, he’ll have a wealth of talent to move up.
But he’ll have to get past Vanderbilt first. And if Pavia can pull off a third consecutive victory over Freeze, his nightmare will last a lot longer than Saturday afternoon.
