Diego Pavia calls out Michigan football’s use of NIL: ‘They should be winning more’

During a recent appearance on Bussin’ With The Boys, Vanderbilt quarterback Diego Pavia was stirring the pot, taking shots at numerous programs across the college football landscape. Pavia’s critiques weren’t limited to Vanderbilt’s rivals, either.

Pavia also poked fun at the alma maters of podcast co-hosts Will Compton and Taylor Lewan. Specifically, Pavia took aim at Lewan’s alma mater, Michigan, claiming that the Wolverines should win more with the amount of NIL money they have available.

“Michigan’s a great school, but they should be winning more than they are with the cap that they got,” Pavia said. “Like, Dave Portnoy donates to Michigan. I know their NIL is through the roof. Should you not win?”

Lewan didn’t shy away from defending his school. He quickly pointed to other issues that prevented Michigan from having its typical success last season.

“We won seven games last year with throwing turned off,” Lewan said. “If you’re if you’re talking about, ‘Hey, there’s multiple phases to an offense.’ You’re going to take off probably like 50% of an offense and still win seven games and just knock down, drag them out three yards in a cloud of dust.

“Tough year. We win the national championship. You must’ve forgot about that in 2024 and then we go into this past year. Yeah, we had some difficulties at quarterback. Not gonna come at the boys at all. We had a hard time tossing the ball over the yard. It was bad. It was not great. Now we got this cat, Bryce Underwood.”

In fairness to Pavia, he admitted that he expected big things from Underwood. Nonetheless, Michigan fans might not pay as much attention to the 2024 SEC Newcomer of the Year’s compliments, as they do to his glaring critiques.

Of course, it’ll also be difficult for Wolverines diehards to deny that Michigan’s 2024 campaign was underwhelming. Michigan entered the season ranked as the No. 9 team in the country. The team didn’t finish the year in the AP Top 25.

As Lewan mentioned, much of Michigan’s struggles can be attributed to the team’s lack of a passing game. The Wolverines averaged 129.1 passing yards per game, the least of any Power Four team in the country.

If Michigan had had a quarterback like Diego Pavia taking snaps, perhaps head coach Sherrone Moore’s debut campaign at the helm would’ve left fans with much more to celebrate. Alas, Michigan will have plenty of opportunities to silence Pavia in the upcoming season.