By ROD WILLIAMSON

NASHVILLE, Tenn., Dec. 29, 2025 — Vanderbilt football looks in a mirror and sees Cinderella signing up for a makeover and emerging as a stunning beauty queen. Longtime Commodore fans — like Iowa Boy columnist and VU alumnus Chuck Offenburger — might be excused for wondering if what they are seeing is actually a mirage, a strange dream with a storybook ending.

Here are some key points in understanding how the pauper became a prince, based on my observations during and after my career as Vandy’s athletics spokesperson.

The Visionary Coach:  Clark Lea has just completed his fifth season at Vanderbilt. He was a walk–on fullback 21 years ago and spent nearly 20 years bouncing around as an assistant under some excellent head coaches. He is built like a wrestler and talks like a philosophy professor. Assistant coaches will jokingly ask him to translate his thoughts into English. He has always thought Vanderbilt was capable of winning football as the University seldom falls short when it sets a goal.

The Meager Program History: It was once dominant in the South but nearly everyone capable of remembering that era is deceased. It’s had a few bright moments since WWII, the most recent being 2011-13 under James Franklin when it won 24 games.

A Turning Point: Vandy had just gone 2-10 in Lea’s third year, a discouraging step backward from the 5-7 mark in Lea’s second season. Morale was low. As he conducted an autopsy on the year, he scanned the college football landscape and wondered how lightly regarded New Mexico State could easily throttle Auburn before 88.000 screaming fans. After studying that game film “eight or nine” times by his own count, he sets a new course.

The Winning Transition: Lea hired several Aggie coaches, including Tim Beck and Jerry Kill to key positions. He also changed his internal messaging, transitioning from a focus on culture-building, accountability and internal standards to the simple focus upon “winning.”

New Rules Prove Helpful: NCAA rules and practices gave Vanderbilt a major boost. Student-athletes could now be legally paid thanks to NIL (Name, Image, Likeness) and the transfer portal became a friend, not a foe. Among the two dozen new faces as the 2024 season dawned were a pair of New Mexico State transfers, self-described “misfits” named Diego Pavia and Eli Stowers. Absolutely no one outside the Vanderbilt locker room could imagine their impact. Vanderbilt was the likeable loser in the public’s eyes: How good could any of the new guys be? The answer was “really, really good.” Lea now had more talent and, importantly, more depth than your grandfather’s Vanderbilt teams as the college football world would soon find out.

Lea, the Innovator: Lea’s first three seasons were underwater but that doesn’t mean there wasn’t progress. One of his first hires was an old high school friend, Barton Simmons, who played football at Yale and had been making his living assessing high school gridiron talent. Lea made Simmons one of college football’s first General Managers with the complex task of overseeing Vanderbilt’s roster formation.

Pavia the Magician: The former state high school wrestling champion immediately made an impact, leading Vandy to an overtime win over Virginia Tech in 2024’s opening game. His daredevil quarterbacking style was part Fran Tarkenton, part Harry Houdini with the guts of a Navy Seal. He was brash; opponents doubtless called him cocky (or worse) but while he talked the talk, he also walked the walk. Dizzy Dean famously said, “It ain’t bragging if you can do it.”

The Big Shocker: Unbeaten and No. 1 ranked Alabama rolled into town midway through the ’24 schedule. Vandy’s double-digit underdogs, led by who other than Pavia, won 40-35, resulting in VU students tearing down the goalposts and carrying them two miles through downtown, tossing them in the Cumberland River. Interviewed amidst the post-game bedlam, Pavia proclaims “Vanderbilt is turnt,” causing unhip onlookers to scurry to dictionaries to look up “turnt.”

2024 Winning On and Off the Field: The Commodores would go 7-6 on the season and beat Georgia Tech in the Birmingham Bowl. Pavia would score another upset, this time in the courts where what appeared to many to be a Hail Mary lawsuit won him one more year of eligibility.

2025 Quite the Encore: This season was the most successful in program history with a 10-2 record and six SEC wins. The two losses came at Texas by three points and at Alabama (30-14), a game truly closer than the final margin.

2025 Honors Gush In: Vandy’s Clark Lea Repeats as SEC Coach of the Year, Eddie Robinson National Coach of Year and finalist for multiple others; Diego Pavia, SEC Offensive Player of Year; Johnny Unitas Golden Arm Award, Multiple All-America honors, Runner-Up Heisman Trophy; Eli Stowers, Consensus first-team All-America tight end, Mackey Award; Offensive coordinator Tim Beck, Semi-finalist for Broyles Award as Assistant Coach of the Year.

It’s been a remarkable couple of years in football’s orbit. Friends and foes were forced to rethink what they thought they knew. Vandy was no longer an automatic “W.” SOLD OUT signs were sentinels near the ticket office. Noise cancelling earplugs were helpful inside the boisterous FirstBank Stadium. And long-suffering Vanderbilt fans are left to wonder if the Pavia era was an affair to remember or the foreshadowing of flirtations to come.

The author of this guest column Rod Williamson is a native of Parkersburg, Iowa, and a graduate of Iowa State University.  He began his career working in sports information at the University of Northern Iowa and Iowa State U, before spending 33 years as chief spokesperson for athletics at Vanderbilt.  You can comment on this story in the handy form below, or you can correspond directly with Williamson by email at rodwilliamson72@gmail.com.