What Happened to Diego Pavia? The Heisman Runner-Up's Six Months Since Going Undrafted

By the DraftClassInsider staff · Published October 12, 2026 · Reporting through October 12, 2026

At a glance

2025 at Vanderbilt: 3,539 passing yards, 71% completions, 29 touchdowns and 8 interceptions, plus 862 rushing yards and 10 rushing touchdowns. He was the Heisman runner-up with 1,435 points to Fernando Mendoza's 2,362.
Draft: undrafted. NFL.com noted he was the first Heisman finalist to go undrafted since Jordan Lynch in 2014, and the first runner-up since Brad Banks in 2003.
Ravens: a three-year, $3.1 million undrafted contract with no signing bonus or guarantees. He was waived on July 23 to clear a roster spot for veteran center Ethan Pocic.
Since then: no NFL, UFL or CFL contract reported through early October. Winnipeg holds his CFL negotiating rights.
Still pending: Pavia v. NCAA, the eligibility lawsuit that got him a 2025 season, is set for trial in February 2027.

Why the NFL Passed

We covered the draft-weekend story in our April deep dive. Six months later, the reasons teams gave are clearer. CBS Sports' reporting on his fall pointed to three. The first was size: Vanderbilt listed him at 6-0, and he measured 5-9 7/8 at the scouting combine. The second was age. He was 24 at the draft. "I just turned 24, so I got like 360 more days to go," he joked. The third was maturity. Before the draft he posted a profane message about Heisman voters and was seen in a New York club with a sign insulting Indiana. "I apologize for being disrespectful," he said afterward.

None of that changed his college production. In 2025 he threw for 3,539 yards and 29 touchdowns, completed 71% of his passes and ran for 862 yards and 10 more scores for a Vanderbilt team that won 10 games for the first time in program history. He was still undrafted. NFL.com wrote that he was the first Heisman finalist to go undrafted since Northern Illinois' Jordan Lynch in 2014, and the first runner-up to go undrafted since Iowa's Brad Banks in 2003.

Three Months in Baltimore

Baltimore moved fast. ESPN's Adam Schefter reported on April 28 that Pavia had agreed to a standard three-year contract as an undrafted free agent. CBS dated the official signing May 1. The deal was worth $3.1 million and included no signing bonus and no guarantees. Undrafted rookies a team really wants usually get some guaranteed money. Pavia got none.

The Ravens had a connection to him. Their new head coach, Jesse Minter, is close with Vanderbilt coach Clark Lea, who coached Pavia for his last two seasons and hired Minter as his defensive coordinator in 2021. The depth chart was the problem. Lamar Jackson is the starter and Tyler Huntley was re-signed as the backup. By summer the race for the No. 3 job had narrowed to veteran Skylar Thompson, who stood out in minicamp, and another undrafted rookie, UConn's Joe Fagnano.

On July 23, a day before rookies reported for training camp, the Ravens waived Pavia to make room for veteran center Ethan Pocic on the 90-man roster. Pro Football Talk's Mike Florio summed up what the three months had paid him: "he didn't get a signing bonus or a game check; at most, he received the standard per diem for his offseason work." Fagnano made Baltimore's initial 53-man roster.

The Options Still Open

Three possible paths came up the day after the waiver.

The UFL. The spring league retweeted the Ravens' waiver announcement with an eyes emoji. No UFL deal has been reported.
The CFL. The Winnipeg Blue Bombers have held his negotiation-list rights since June 2024. In April, general manager Kyle Walters said, "He's exciting. That guy wins," and added, "We would love to have him up here and I think he would be a very interesting prospect if he ever makes his way up here."
Another NFL team. Complex's August report mentioned no NFL workouts with other teams. We have found no NFL signing, workout or practice-squad deal since.

Going back to college does not look realistic. Florio noted that Pavia "doesn't fit within the NCAA's new eligibility rule." He could try to sue for another season, but our report on the undrafted rookies who tried to return to college shows how that turned out for others this fall.

The Streamer

Pavia's highest-profile appearance this fall was on Twitch. BroBible reported on October 2 that he streamed for more than four and a half hours from New Mexico State's rivalry game against New Mexico, a game with ties to his past: he played at New Mexico State before transferring to Vanderbilt. A clip from the tailgate drew more than two million views on X. "i'm trynna find my wife here soon.. but game recognize game & fluff got it," he said in it. The same report says that since the waiver he "did not sign with another professional organization." With 112,000 Instagram followers, according to CBS, he has an audience whether or not he plays.

The Lawsuit Is Still Going

Pavia already won one legal fight against the NCAA. In November 2024 he sued in federal court in Nashville, arguing that his two junior-college seasons should not count against his Division I eligibility. On December 18, 2024, Judge William Campbell granted a preliminary injunction, writing that the rules were "restraints on trade with substantial anticompetitive effects." The NCAA then gave former junior-college players like him a waiver for 2025-26, and that is the season in which he finished second for the Heisman.

The case did not end when his college career did. Law360 reported in February that it is set for trial in February 2027, and on October 7 that a federal judicial panel declined to combine the NCAA's eligibility lawsuits into one proceeding. The eligibility system he challenged is still being decided case by case. Our story on Brendan Sorsby and the report on players who tried to return to college both show how much of it is still unsettled.

Our Take

The NFL's decision on Pavia was not close. Teams passed on him for seven rounds, and the team that signed him guaranteed nothing and cut him before camp. His best route back to an NFL roster probably runs through spring or Canadian football. The UFL season starts in late March, and the CFL season runs through the summer and fall. In either league, a few months of game film could matter more to NFL teams than the Heisman finish did. The other options are a media career or the lawsuit. In April we called Pavia "the most over-credentialed UDFA in modern NFL history." Six months later that is still true, and he still has no team.

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