Vanderbilt Commodores football star Diego Pavia lashes out at strange target in spirited rant

Last October, Diego Pavia quickly became one of college football's national darlings. The six-foot signal-caller who spent time at JUCO and New Mexico State transferred to start at SEC bottom-feeder Vanderbilt but shockingly put the program on the map.

Their upset of the top-ranked Alabama Crimson Tide in Nashville will go down as one of the most stunning college football upsets of the modern era. The small-statured Pavia's play was like a Johnny Manziel tribute act, and his humble personality made him incredibly likable.

Fast forward to the present, and the 24-year-old is trying to ruin his image by taking bizarre shots at a rival conference.

While talking on the "Bussing with the Boys" podcast, Pavia decided to go scorched earth on the Big Ten.

"You want to play with the best—you don't want to play with the Big Ten," Pavia said. The SEC is, like, nothing. Like, okay, the Big Ten, you have Ohio State, Oregon—the SEC, it's like week after week. You're going to get beaten on. The Big Ten, you're not going to get beat on with the Purdue, Nebraskas."

I will never understand why athletes, in particular, try to make these claims without getting the facts straight.

The Big Ten was 11-6 in bowl games compared to just 8-7 from the SEC, with the Big Ten 5-1 head-to-head.

Pavia cherry-picking a few teams in modern mega-conferences is funny since the cellar-dwellers of the SEC were also abysmal.

This isn't 2013 anymore—the world no longer revolves around the SEC.

Vanderbilt and Pavis should probably try to knock off Sun Belt “powerhouse” Georgia State this campaign before trying to call out some of the nation's most decorated programs.