Diego Pavia Goes Viral During Ravens Rookie Minicamp - See Why

Former Vanderbilt quarterback Diego Pavia finished second to former Indiana quarterback Fernando Mendoza in Heisman voting last December. He was a distant second, as Mendoza had 643 first-place votes to Pavia’s 189.

The gulf between them was even wider in last week’s 2026 NFL Draft.

Mendoza went No. 1 overall to the Las Vegas Raiders, while Pavia became the first Heisman finalist to go undrafted since Jordan Lynch in 2014.

But Mendoza and Pavia both practiced at rookie minicamps on Saturday.

Pavia accepted an invitation to the Baltimore Ravens‘ minicamp, and one particular clip of Pavia went viral.

Baltimore Sun reporter Sam Cohn posted a video on X showing Pavia walking up to his center before backing up to take a snap out of the shotgun. The clip is pretty nondescript, except for one pretty important aspect.

“He's taking under center snaps at chest level,” The Athletic’s Ted Nguyen wrote, and he was far from the only one to notice how small Pavia looked.

Pavia was listed at 5-foot-10 1/8″ at the NFL Combine in late February. While that didn’t stop him from being extremely productive for two seasons at Vanderbilt - he’s the reigning SEC Offensive Player of the Year - NFL.com’s Lance Zierlein noted that it is “rare to see quarterbacks with his measurables make an NFL roster.”

Pavia is competing with Joe Fagnano and Billy Atkins for the third quarterback spot on Baltimore’s roster, per ESPN’s Jamison Hensley.

Pavia’s draft stock may have also been hindered by his reaction to losing out on the Heisman to Mendoza. He wrote “[Expletive] ALL THE VOTERS” on his Instagram Story and later apologized in a lengthy X post.

“[Pavia has] had some experiences that are learning experiences that he could learn from and be better from,” new Ravens head coach Jesse Minter told reporters, per Hensley. “I don’t think anybody would dispute that. But when you talk to the people inside that building [at Vanderbilt] and what he’s about as a player, he is showing up early every day and working really hard.”

Minter added, “Now he’s in the door, and it’s like, ‘Show us what you can do. And just like all the undrafted rookies, that’s what I would say.”

See more clips of Pavia with the Ravens below.

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This story was originally published May 2, 2026 at 8:06 PM.