KNOXVILLE − Antoinette Padilla tucked herself into the corner of a hotel elevator, the handle of her rolling suitcase in one hand, a white ball cap with the phrase "TURNTUP" in the other as she pressed the glowing "1" button.
"Big game today," a fellow passenger said, late morning on Nov. 29.
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisement"Uh huh," she said, nodding her head in agreement. "Probably bigger for us."
"Us" as in the No. 12 Vanderbilt's football team. "Us" as in the team her youngest son, quarterback Diego Pavia, has helped rise from the ashes of the SEC, to the College Football Playoff conversation, to the forefront of college football. The "us" she referred to was the Clark Lea-led band of Commodores "misfits" that Pavia brazenly declared, on a Netflix special earlier this year, could "beat (Tennessee) any given Saturday."
“They think they’re going to destroy us,” Pavia said on "Any Given Saturday," which aired in August. “(Expletive) every single one of those dudes."
Saturday, Nov. 29, it turns out, was that given Saturday.
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementA drowned-in-orange Neyland Stadium was the place.
A place in the conversation about making the 12-team College Football Playoff — and the first 10-win season in program history — hung in the balance.
This was Vanderbilt's time. A time to beat a program it hadn't since 2018. A time to back up their quarterback's words. A time to deliver some comeuppance to big brother.
Which the Commodores did to the tune of a 45-24 victory that dialed the volume down in one of college football's loudest venues to a stunned silence. That left those in orange crushed.
'A lot of people thought I was a fool'
The quarterback with the big mouth, the big arm, the big legs, the big heart, of course, played big.
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementHeisman Trophy-contending big.
"A lot of people thought I was a fool, you know, whatever (for saying that about Tennessee)," said Pavia after he threw for 268 yards and ran for 165 more. After he scored two touchdowns — one passing and one rushing. After he waved goodbye to the Neyland faithful.
"But all it takes is faith, and our faith is with God. I feel like he gave me a vision. He gave me this platform. ... I just spoke my mind that day, and I think a lot of people's feelings were hurt. But it felt good to come in and back it up."
That's how Pavia is wired.
That's how Pavia has wired the Commodores.
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementPavia eclipsed 3,000 passing yards this season in the win over the Vols. He finished with 3,192 yards this year, a Vanderbilt single-season school record. Pavia's 165 rushing yards gave him more than 1,500 for his career in Nashville.
He wears a "C" on his chest and the number 2, which might as well be a backward S on his chest.
He wasn't shy to share with the world his team's national championship hopes before the season, either.
He was mocked for that, too.
But not by Lea.
No, siree.
"The way he's transformed our locker room, the way he's transformed our play on the field ... and not losing his personality, not losing the things that make him so special," Lea said, "because that's not what the world needs. They don't need Diego in a box."
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisement'Heisman! Heisman! Heisman!'
Whether or not Vanderbilt's victory will get the Commodores into the 12-team playoff will be up to a committee and some strange quotients that will be questioned no matter the result.
As expected, the Commodore believe they belong. Not just in the conversation, but in the playoff.
But there's a week for the pundits and professionals to ponder all that before the field is revealed on Dec. 7.
This Saturday was about any given Saturday.
This Saturday was another chance to Pavia to show what he's shown before: That he's no fluke. That he belongs in Heisman conversations. That his team belongs in CFP conversations.
Vanderbilt players celebrate after their win against Tennessee at Neyland Stadium in Knoxville, Tenn., Saturday, Nov. 29, 2025."That's not me being cocky or arrogant," Pavia said. "I just feel like that's point-blank. I hope they see it that way. More importantly, I hope that our team is able to get in the College Football Playoff."
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementNobody was laughing this time.
Antoinette Padilla reunited with her son after the game, when he jogged to the Vanderbilt fan section, where she was standing front row with some other family members and friends. Still in her boots and her coat and her element.
Chants of "Heisman! Heisman! Heisman!" showered Pavia as he handed out high-fives and hellos and hugs and handshakes over the padded concrete wall that separated him from Vanderbilt's fan section, which trolled No. 18 Tennessee fans by singing "Rocky Top."
"(Expletive) Tennessee," one of Pavia's brothers yelled.
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementLike older brother, like younger brother.
As for Pavia's mother?
She repeated what she'd said to an audience of one or two in the hotel lobby that morning.
"Anchor down!"
Paul Skrbina is a sports enterprise reporter covering the Predators, Titans, Nashville SC, local colleges and local sports for The Tennessean. Reach him at [email protected] and on the X platform (formerly known as Twitter) @paulskrbina.
This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Diego Pavia, Vanderbilt football proved preseason prediction correct
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