Clark Lea anticipates Diego Pavia, Eli Stowers to play for Vanderbilt in ReliaQuest Bowl
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Diego Pavia and Eli Stowers are expected to play for Vanderbilt football in the ReliaQuest Bowl, coach Clark Lea said Dec. 7.
Although there have been no official announcements as to their status, Lea said he had no conversations that would indicate Pavia or Stowers plan to opt out of the Dec. 31 bowl against Iowa (8-4) in Tampa, Florida.
“They’ve got great futures ahead of them, but they’re also great competitors, and that’s what has made them so special here,” Lea said. “So I anticipate them playing.”
Pavia, a Heisman Trophy contender, put up 3,192 passing yards and 826 rushing yards this season. He is not considered a top NFL draft prospect, however, due to lack of size (6-foot, 207 pounds) and prototypical arm strength. Stowers, a tight end who caught 62 passes for 769 yards this season, is a potential first-round pick.
Did Vanderbilt consider declining bowl bid after being left out of CFP?
Notre Dame, left out of the College Football Playoff on selection day, opted out of a bowl entirely. According to Lea, the Commodores (10-2) never considered doing the same.
“We love playing football here,” Lea said. “To realize that we get a chance to close out a special season, a special group of players on a great bowl stage in a great city against a really, really tough opponent, as a football fan, as a football coach, as a football person, it’s hard not to get excited about that.”
Vanderbilt could reach 11 wins for the first time in program history with a victory in the bowl.
Clark Lea on Vanderbilt football CFP snub
Although Lea advocated for Vanderbilt to make the CFP, he took a different tack during the pre-bowl news conference, refusing to say that the team was robbed.
The Commodores lost what ultimately would become their only two games against teams ranked in the CFP top 25, road matchups against Alabama and Texas.
“When we had control at Alabama, we came up short,” Lea said. “We didn’t score. We needed another possession to finish in the end zone. And when we had control at Texas, we needed one more stop, and there’s a great lesson in that.”
He continued: “We happened to be on the wrong side of that in this moment, but that’s no one’s fault except for our own. We had our opportunities and we didn’t do enough, and so we are not victims in this process. Our ownership is in coming up short. It’s a reminder of how critical every moment is.”
Lea called for a playoff system that had 16 teams without any automatic bids, which would reward the programs that played the toughest schedules, even if it came at the expense of playoff access for Group of Five teams. Two Group of Five teams, James Madison and Tulane, earned automatic bids as two of the five highest-ranked conference champions.
Aria Gerson covers Vanderbilt athletics for The Tennessean. Contact her at agerson@gannett.com or on X @aria_gerson.
This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Diego Pavia, Eli Stowers expected to play for Vanderbilt in bowl game
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