David Pollack reacts to Diego Pavia's behavior after losing Heisman Trophy

Vanderbilt quarterback Diego Pavia made headlines for all the wrong reasons this weekend after finishing a distant second in the voting for 2025 Heisman Trophy, which went to Indiana‘s Fernando Mendoza on Saturday night from New York City. That included posting “F all the voters” in an Instagram post and holding up a “F**k Indiana” sign while partying with friend and podcaster Theo Von later Saturday night.

Pavia apologized for his disrespectful behavior and praised Mendoza in a lengthy social media post Sunday night, but the damage was done. On Monday, multiple college football pundits including ESPN firebrands Stephen A. Smith and Pat McAfee reacted to Pavia’s wild “heel-turn” on Monday.

Former ESPN analyst and popular Georgia alum David Pollack weighed in on Pavia’s post-Heisman Trophy ceremony behavior, attributing it to his “next-level confidence” that has helped carry Vanderbilt to never-before-seen heights, including its first-ever 10-win season this year.

“Listen, I hesitate to even say it, but I’m never going to be the dude that takes shots at kids, but Pavia is 24 (years old), he’s not a kid anymore — he’s a grown man — (so) I’ll just say this, watching the reaction to Diego Pavia and the language and how he responded, it’s not my favorite. He didn’t represent himself well,” Pollack said during Monday’s episode of his See Ball Get Ball podcast. “And here’s the thing about Diego Pavia, I loved that he apologized too, … and I get it man, because I’m very similar in the aspect that I had delusional confidence, I was a cocky butthole, and that’s why I was really, really good. People that have next-level confidence, a lot of times … it’s next-level psychosis, psychotic, like the way you approach it, everything is an insult. … It’s a slight. So, I think he took it personally.”

Pavia finished as a distant runner-up in this year’s Heisman Trophy voting with 189 first-place votes compared to Mendoza’s 643 first-place votes and 2,362 total points, 927 more than Pavia’s (1,435). Of course, Pavia’s point total was nearly double that of third-place finisher Jeremiyah Love (719) of Notre Dame and more than 1,000 points better than fourth-place Julian Sayin (432) of Ohio State.

“It was the only thing that was really interesting when it comes to the Heisman (Trophy ceremony),” Pollack continued, pointing out Pavia’s incredible football career likely has reached its end in college. “Diego is 5-9 in heels, the dude’s not tall, he’s not going to play at the next level – listen this is fuel to his fire, because he’s going to absolutely hate hearing this and he’s going to have a list of every (doubter). But when you get to (the NFL), and everybody can catch you and everybody’s a mutant, you find less and less people that star outside the means. … I know he can scramble, but scrambling away from Myles Garrett is a little different than other humans.”