Last season, New Mexico State accomplished something in its only try that Vanderbilt failed to do in eight attempts: they won an SEC game. The Aggies traveled from Las Cruces, N.M. -- which, in the SEC's world, might as well be the surface of the moon -- and didn't just defeat Auburn, they hammered them. New Mexico State's beat the Tigers by 21 points; Vanderbilt hasn't done the same in five full seasons.
The following week, Vanderbilt head coach Clark Lea estimated he watched the game "nine or 10 times."
Lea initially thought his dissection of the game would be the launch point for an offseason visit to Las Cruces. Two weeks prior, the same Auburn team had beaten Vanderbilt 31-15 in Nashville, so Lea wanted to get to the very bottom of every single detail of how a program with a tenth of the resources of even the SEC's least-resourced program performed 36 points better against a common opponent.
"When I say start to finish, the inner cut where you go from play one to the final play and watch every phase and every snap," Lea said.
But then it evolved into something more. Vandy's season ended Nov. 25, and by Nov. 29 Lea announced both coordinators would not return. Lea immediately named himself his own defensive coordinator, and didn't have to think hard about to identify his top offensive coordinator candidate.
The Auburn tape showed Lea an offense that was "creative in design but not gimmicky." New Mexico State finished 2023 ranked 15th nationally in rushing and 12th in yards per play and, crucially, the Aggies' output traveled from Conference USA to the Auburn tape Lea knew so well.
The Aggies rushed the ball 37 times for 213 yards, a 5.8 average that was a-yard-and-a-half per carry beyond Auburn's season average of 4.35 allowed per pop. "The improvement made by his unit in two years at New Mexico State stood out to me and demonstrates the type of developmental success needed at Vanderbilt," Lea said.
But that was just step one.
Losing Beck destabilized New Mexico State's staff, something Lea capitalized on. The Vanderbilt coach leveraged his hiring of Jerry Kill's offensive coordinator to convince Kill to come along to Nashville.
"When I interviewed Tim Beck I knew there was a chance Coach Kill was going to retire from being a head coach," Lea said. "Like any good recruiter I wanted to position myself to sell Nashville. And it just so happens he's got a granddaughter that lives nearby, which is a great 'in.'"
With 173 wins spread across Saginaw Valley State, Emporia State, Southern Illinois, Northern Illinois, Minnesota and New Mexico State (plus two more as an interim at TCU), Kill is the patron saint of head coaches at hard-to-win places.
"I come at him with the approach of, like, 'I need you to come help. I need to lean on your experience.' To have someone with that level of success and experience, it builds confidence in all of us," Lea said. "I feel privileged to have him as a part of our staff. He makes me better, and he makes us better."
Kill stepped down at New Mexico State on Dec. 23 and, with his head coach and offensive coordinator now departing, Aggies quarterback Diego Pavia entered the transfer portal on Christmas Eve. As it just so happened, Pavia was exactly what Vanderbilt needed at the most important position on the field.
An Albuquerque native, Pavia started his career in 2020 at the New Mexico Military Institute , where he emerged as the starting quarterback over the course of a covid-influenced freshman season. A year later, Pavia led NMMI to a JuCo national championship. Transferring to NMSU, he won the starting job over the course of the 2022 season. In 2023, he was a few yards shy of a 3,000/1,000 season en route to becoming the Conference USA Offensive Player of the Year.
So, Pavia is one of the most accomplished players in college football, but he's best known for urinating on the midfield logo at New Mexico's practice facility as NMSU prepped for the 2022 Quick Lane Bowl.
Safe to say, both sides of Pavia's personality showed on the Auburn film. Pavia hit 19-of-28 passes for 201 yards and three touchdowns in the win, but it was a violent tackle that Lea remembered eight months later.
"I saw a quarterback that was a maniac and suplexed a linebacker on the sideline early on in the game, and one of his only mistakes where you threw an interception," Lea said. "It was impressive."
Vanderbilt announced Kill's hiring on Jan. 17, the same day Pavia committed to Vandy. Lea's annexation of New Mexico State's football program -- the most valuable parts of it, at least -- was complete.
Now, the trio of Kill, Beck and Pavia will attempt to duplicate at Vanderbilt what Lea watched them accomplish at New Mexico State. And watched again, again, again and again.