Diego Pavia recalls his favorite Jerry Kill story from New Mexico State, power he possessed

Diego Pavia took the SEC by storm a year ago, suiting up for Vanderbilt and instantly turning the Commodores into a team that could contend with some of the SEC juggernauts. An upset over Alabama highlighted that.

But it was Pavia’s unique positioning that made it possible. He was linked up with his former head coach Jerry Kill, who joined the Vanderbilt staff as a consultant following his gig as the New Mexico State head coach.

Diego Pavia recently joined the Bussin’ With The Boys podcast and the crew put him to the test. They asked Pavia his favorite Kill story.

“This guy’s a nutjob,” Pavia said, without much hesitation. “Like he’s just one of us, just the older version. He don’t care what anyone thinks about him. He don’t care about anything.”

That could mean plenty of things, so Pavia drilled it down a little further with an anecdote of his time at New Mexico State. The story began on the first day of practice.

“I would say New Mexico State, when he was the head coach, like he had all the power in the world,” Diego Pavia said. “I remember this story exactly. We were in like a team meeting and after that, it was like the first day of fall camp, getting done in the team meeting, we go out there and we get done practicing. This kid has a full-body cramp.

“And he’s like, ‘Where’s the f*cking trainer at?’ And the trainer didn’t have IVs. They couldn’t give IVs for some reason at New Mexico State. He fired the trainer, the equipment staff and like one of the board of directors at New Mexico State that day. And then he was like having to do; he hired basically the coaches to serve out equipment. Hired out people just to give out water and stuff. So he fired somebody like on the spot first day.”

Look close enough and you can see a similar attitude in the way Diego Pavia plays. He plays with reckless abandon, and it’s one of the reasons it works for him.

His toughness is an instant addition to the offense, and he’s quick to galvanize his teammates that way. As for Kill, he’s providing the kind of know how that he has since he began coaching in 1985.

And, oh yeah, don’t forget to take care of the players. That was a problem at New Mexico State initially.

“There was no one to give him an IV,” Diego Pavia said. Problem solved, the Jerry Kill way.