Diego Pavia is Carving his Place in NMSU Football History

LAS CRUCES, New Mexico (KVIA) -- New Mexico State Football is living out the unthinkable - a 10 win season for just the second time in program history, back-to-back bowl games for the first time in 63 years and a Conference USA title game, their first season in the league.

It takes a village to achieve a season like this, but without Diego Pavia, none of it would be possible.

ABC-7 spoke exclusively with Pavia in his first interview since September.

Pavia has become an enigma in college football - he's got a confidence about him that draws you in and makes you want to root for him. The numbers he puts up, make that even easier - 28 total touchdowns and 3,535 total yards. But what he's achieving now, very few saw coming.

"I want people to doubt me," Pavia said. "That's what I like, that's what makes me play better, I like when people tell me I can't do something."

Pavia was first told no when he was five years old. He wanted to play football just like his brothers but he had to be seven years old. One year later his mother Antoinette gave in, "She lied on my birth certificate and put me on an older team."

Pavia fell in love with the game and that irreplaceable feeling.

"There's nothing like winning, I love winning, I'll do anything to win," Pavia said.

Betting on himself started with wrestling, a sport he credits to getting him to where he is now. He won a State Title in the sport and got offered a partial scholarship to Division 1 school Northern Colorado.

Pavia turned down the scholarship and decided to bet on himself even though he didn't have any D1 offers.

The now, NMSU quarterback ended up at the New Mexico Military Institute where he was the third string QB in his first season. By the end of the year he had the starting spot on lock and and the following season he led NMMI to a JUCO National Championship.

Jerry Kill and NMSU first looked at Pavia in the semifinal game.

"I went this is a quarterback? You've got to be kidding me," Kill said. "He's a small guy and doesn't look like a quarterback, he's unique. Recruiting him you just didn't know."

Kill partially offered Pavia before the National Championship game but had already offered the quarterback on the opposing side.

"I knew I had to outplay him," Pavia said.

And the QB did just that. He had 176 total yards and three total touchdowns. A few days later Kill called to offer him a full ride.

"I couldn't stop smiling," Pavia said.

The next chapter wasn't all it was cracked up to be - the Aggies started the season 1-5 and Pavia was in and out of the starting lineup. The dream was slowly slipping away.

"I told myself if they give me that job one more time I'm not going to look back and I'm going to take off," Pavia said.

The No. 10 did more than that - he led the team to five wins out of the next six games, including a bowl game dub, which saw him take home MVP honors. And now a historic season.

Pavia has certainly turned heads this season for his play on the field but one incident off the field raised eyebrows in the wrong way.

Back in September video surfaced of the star quarterback urinating on the UNM practice field. The video went viral and surface on all major sites. Pavia spoke to publicly for the first time about the incident to ABC-7.

"It happened before the year, just a lot of animosity toward them," Pavia said. "They told me I basically wasn’t good enough and I wasn’t going to play and when someone tells you that when they’re supposed to believe in you, it’s heartbreaking. But that doesn't justify my actions, at the end of the day, I shouldn’t have done it. I know it was a bad look and people thought different of me, but people can think what they want, I’m always going to have that swagger to me, I’m always going to be me.”

The Aggies led by Pavia will once again look to put the nation on notice when they play in the Conference USA Title Game against No. 20 Liberty on Friday.