Reusse: Diego Pavia paves way for JUCO athletes to gain more NCAA eligibility

Jerry Kill resigned as the Gophers football coach in the middle of the 2015 season due to issues with his well-known epilepsy. He had several jobs over the next six years, although he wasn’t the coach in charge until serving as the interim at TCU after his friend Gary Patterson resigned on Oct. 31, 2021, with four games remaining in the season.

Three days after the TCU season ended, Kill was announced as the new coach at New Mexico State.

There were pundits who labeled this as the worst job among the 120-plus in Division I’s Football Bowl Subdivision. Tracy Claeys, Kill’s long-time defensive coordinator, was contacted to join Jerry in Las Cruces, N.M.

“No thank you, coach,” was Claeys’ response.

Kill and his offensive coordinator, Tim Beck, became enamored with Diego Pavia — a quarterback at New Mexico Military Institute, a junior college — and took him to the Aggies.

Pavia and the Aggies went 7-6 in 2022, with a victory in the prestigious Quick Lane Bowl in Detroit. They went 10-5 in 2023, a 15-game schedule that included a conference title game and the New Mexico Bowl vs. Fresno State.

Kill was very popular in Aggieland, had himself a tattoo in honor of NMSU, and then he quit. Beck had gone to Vanderbilt as the offensive coordinator for coach Clark Lea, and Kill joined him as an offensive consultant.

The short, stocky quarterback complied. Vandy upset a then-fully stocked Virginia Tech in the season opener, did the impossible and beat Alabama (40-35) and played Texas to within a field goal.

Pavia would be very hard to replace at Vanderbilt, with its long history of football misery. And then came a better idea: Pavia’s representatives filed a lawsuit against the NCAA, claiming the two seasons at a JUCO school should not count against his eligibility at an NCAA school.

A judge ruled in Pavia’s favor in December, and he was quickly given a $1 million NIL deal to return as Vanderbilt’s quarterback in 2025. And since he has no chance to play in the NFL with his stature and skill set, he might also be there in 2026 (due to two JUCO seasons).

And chaos has ensued.

The NCAA has appealed the temporary injunction in Pavia’s favor. In the meantime, the NCAA Division I Board of Directors has granted a waiver for all athletes who competed at a non-NCAA school to play another season in the 2025-26 school year.

Here are a couple of large uncertainties:

Will Divisions II and III follow and also grant the extra eligibility for JUCO athletes? And, since the waiver announcement stated “non-NCAA school,” does this mean athletes competing at NAIA schools would be eligible for extra eligibility as transfers to four-year NCAA schools?

There are a fair number of NAIA colleges in the Dakotas and Iowa, and those programs could be a source of experienced transfers for the sprawling 16-team, D-II Northern Sun Intercollegiate Conference.

Erin Lind, the NSIC commissioner, said: “I’m on the management council for Division II and we have a meeting next week. I expect a few others to be as uncertain as me on what this means for us. The NCAA convention is in Nashville in mid-January [14-17] and let’s hope we come out of that with answers.”

There’s also this for the NAIA angle and Lind’s conference: The University of Jamestown in North Dakota — a small Christian school — is being admitted as the NSIC’s 16th member (and 14th for football) next fall. And at the moment, Jamestown is an NAIA school.

Austin Hieb, the athletic director for the Jimmies, said: “Whether it will apply to Division II, whether it applies to NAIA … I have no idea. All I can say is, ‘We’re checking.’ ”

Marselio Mendez, an outstanding receiver for D-III St. John’s, assumed his college career was over. He was putting together a highlight tape in search of pro opportunities — Canada, Europe, wherever — when he received a message on the screen from coach Gary Fasching:

“It looks like you’re probably going to have another year.”

That’s because Mendez spent his first two college years at the North Dakota School of Science, a JUCO in Wahpeton. He would be back in school finishing a degree next fall, and now there’s a big chance that could include football.

“I’m excited, but trying not to get ahead of myself,” Mendez said. “We’re back in school on January 21st. By then, hopefully, it’s official for all divisions.”