TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — Thirteen years after he was the swaggering quarterback wearing No. 2 who came into Bryant-Denny Stadium with a target on his back, Johnny Manziel returned to the scene of his finest moment. He was on the sideline Saturday wearing a black Diego Pavia No. 2 jersey, supporting the Vanderbilt QB he met and befriended at an NIL summit last year.
Comparisons have been made between the two, and there is some justification for it—a pair of undersized, fearless, downright cocky playmakers who sent shock waves through the Southeastern Conference. But only one of them was able to beat Alabama here, in this stadium where so many visiting team dreams go to die. That was Manziel in 2012, leading Texas A&M and producing a jaw-dropping performance that catapulted him to the Heisman Trophy.
Saturday, Pavia couldn’t sustain the second coming of No. 2 theme. In fact, his two red zone turnovers—a fumble in the first half at the Crimson Tide 8-yard line and an interception in the second at the Bama 7—were the biggest reasons why 5–0 Cinderella Vanderbilt lost its first game of the season, 30–14, to the Crimson Tide.
“His aggressiveness hurt him,” Johnny Football tells . “Both those turnovers, he had easier plays he could have made. But he’s an aggressive guy, a good kid and a good player. And one loss doesn’t keep them out of the playoff. He’ll be O.K.”
To the surprise of no one, Pavia threw the loss on his own shoulders afterward: “I put the game on me.” He produced some big plays in throwing and running for 256 total yards, but the Commodores were shut out in the second half and his errors took points off the board.
Instead of the New Mexico State transfer who had been 12–6 at Vandy being the star, the better quarterback Saturday was Alabama’s Ty Simpson. He’s a talented pocket passer with all the tools, but Simpson is more than that—he showed a freelance ability that hadn’t been much in evidence this season until now. At times he out-Pavia’d Pavia.
Simpson dodged a rusher and fired a touchdown pass to Ryan Williams to get Alabama on the board in the first half. He ran or passed on all 10 plays during a third-quarter field goal drive, including a 13-yard scramble that ended with him pointing into a roaring crowd. He repeatedly bought time to extend plays and make throws, on his way to 340 passing yards and two touchdowns. There was a lot of improvisational flair on display.
“I’ve done it since high school, but I feel like I’ve evolved just from playing,” Simpson said.
He’s waited long enough to play—longer than a lot of five-star quarterback recruits would be willing to get their shot. Simpson redshirted behind Bryce Young in 2022, then played sparingly behind Jalen Milroe the last two seasons.
When the Martin, Tenn., product finally got his shot to start this season, his first game was a disaster—a two-touchdown upset loss to Florida State that had Alabama fans smashing the panic button and ready to fire coach Kalen DeBoer after just 14 games on the job.
Simpson wasn’t terrible in that game, but he wasn’t great—he completed just 23-of-43 passes for 254 yards with two touchdowns, garnering an efficiency rating of 118.46. Since then, he’s arguably been the best quarterback in the country. Simpson has compiled 88 out of 115 attempts (76.5% accuracy) for 1,224 yards, 13 touchdowns and one interception. That’s an efficiency rating of 201.49.
“Heisman level,” said offensive lineman Kadyn Proctor. “That’s what I see from him.”
(Simpson was critical of himself for the one interception, in the first possession Saturday, calling it “ridiculous.” But it was a fourth-down play that effectively served as a punt. Alabama was turning the ball over on the play no matter what.)
Along the way he’s also become Two-Minute Ty. In the last three games, Simpson has led a 98-yard touchdown drive to end the first half against Wisconsin, a 75-yarder to end the first half against Georgia and a 78-yarder against Vandy on Saturday that erased the Commodores’ final lead of the game.
“We talk about trust all the time and communication on offense,” Simpson said. “I mean we all trust one another. And there was no doubt in our mind that when we got the ball in that two-minute drill, we were going to go score.”
Six weeks in, this has become the kind of season where wild results are simply part of the landscape. Upset losses are everywhere. While Penn State and Texas are folding under Top 10 preseason expectations, Alabama is regrouping.
It couldn’t have been easy just to hunker down and play through the negative noise from that opening loss to Florida State. A Tide fan wanted to win the lottery to buy out DeBoer, for crying out loud.
“When it first happened Week 1, there’s one of two things you can do,” DeBoer said. “You can just take it or you can fight back, and if you are who we are, and we really believe that we have a good football team, then we should only have one option. That’s just to get everything we got and leave it all on the football field.”
Beating Georgia was big, but Alabama always beats Georgia. The Tide’s next task was turning around and serving some revenge to a Vandy program that won a stunner in Nashville last year, punctuating it with a field storm and a goal post demolition.
The Dores have been feeling themselves ever since. They were confident enough that Pavia popped off to On3 in the lead-up to this game, saying, “I don’t know what they’re doing, I just focus on us, but I know we’ve got to bring it, that’s for sure. The crowd, I think, is going to be a big factor in the game. But we just gotta play within the white lines. If we do that, if we play our game, it won’t be close.”
Alabama players heard it and said little. Even after getting payback.
“He’s a good player and we got the outcome we wanted,” said defensive lineman Tim Keenan III.
“He feels confident in his team and that’s great, but we actually do, too,” Proctor said. “We obviously feel confident in Alabama.”
The reasons to have confidence in Alabama have grown weekly. Next up is another challenge against a third straight undefeated SEC opponent, this time Missouri. If the 4–1 Tide get past that one, they might head into the back half of the season as the league favorite.
Vanderbilt isn’t out of it—not the league race or the playoff race. Not yet. But the feel-good story took a hit Saturday. Johnny Football, not Diego Pavia, remains the last No. 2 to walk out of Bryant-Denny with an upset victory.
