Diego Pavia opens up on Vanderbilt attempt to schedule 13th game to woo College Football Playoff committee

News emerged Thursday morning that Vanderbilt had been exploring the idea of playing a 13th, unscheduled game in the hopes of convincing the College Football Playoff selection committee it should be part of the 12-team field. It doesn’t appear that it will happen.

But certainly not for lack of trying. Coach Clark Lea was serious in his pursuit of an additional game, quarterback Diego Pavia revealed on a SportsCenter hit on Thursday.

“Yeah, we had a team meeting, I want to say it was on Monday or something, and coach Lea was basically like, ‘Look, we’re reaching out, we’re trying to play. We’ll keep you guys posted,'” Pavia said. “But I guess because of logistics and things like that, it might not be happening, so that’s pretty sad.”

For his part, Pavia was a big fan of the idea for Vanderbilt. It would have given the program a special showcase game. And with the team currently ranked No. 14 in the rankings, there’s not a ton of downside.

“I think it’s must-watch TV,” Pavia said. “A lot of people would want to see us play a Miami or a Notre Dame. Like coach Lea said, we’ll play any time or any place, just throw the ball down.

“We’ll play one through 12 anywhere, any place. Just give us a chance, that’s all we want.”

With that game unlikely to happen, Vanderbilt will have to hope what it has accomplished so far will be enough to get it into the field. Of course, unless things change, that’s looking unlikely.

Pavia spoke briefly to Vanderbilt’s playoff chances, claiming “politics” are responsible for keeping the ‘Dores out. He explained.

“I think it’s a lot of politics at the top, that’s what’s going on,” Pavia said. “You look at our strength of schedule at the beginning of the year, the people we beat, when we beat them, on the road, and it just, there’s no other 10-2 team, SEC team left out. That’s the thing.

“Then you go, they have Texas ahead of us, too. I don’t know what’s going on or what they’re thinking up there, but I feel like we deserve to be in the College Football Playoff.”