The Vanderbilt Commodores are almost certain to be left on the outside when the final College Football Playoff rankings drop next week. In response, star quarterback Diego Pavia is seeking assistance from none other than the President of the United States.
Vanderbilt put together a season to be proud of, especially by the program’s historical standards, closing out the regular season at 10-2, their first-ever 10-win finish.
Even with such a strong season, the College Football Playoff selection committee wasn’t sufficiently convinced by Vanderbilt’s résumé to include the Commodores in the mix. They landed at No. 14 in the second-to-last rankings, effectively eliminating any realistic chance of cracking the 12-team playoff field when it’s revealed next week.
With hopes of sneaking into the playoff all but gone, Pavia looked to an unexpected source: United States President Donald Trump.
Early Wednesday, Pavia reposted a social media message advocating for a 16-team playoff format — one that would have given Vanderbilt a shot. In his X post, he also tagged Trump, urging him to step in via executive action.
“MAKE THE EXECUTIVE ORDER PLEASE,” Pavia wrote, tagging Trump and adding both an exclamation-point emoji and the eyes emoji.
Needless to say, Pavia’s pleas led to a lot of reactions on social media.
“I’m also calling on the president to sign an executive order that Pavia get a job in the real world. It’s over. You have to go to work now,” one fan wrote in a post on X.
“Whining for help from the President should be an automatic disqualification from Heisman consideration,” someone else wrote.
“This is the lamest college football tweet I’ve ever seen,” another person added.
“Begging to expand the playoffs so he can play 1 more football game,” another fan added.
“Just to get bounced in the first round,” someone else said.
Of course, despite Pavia’s request, Trump has no power to enact such a change even if he wished to. The College Football Playoff is run by a private entity, owned collectively by the ten FBS conferences and the University of Notre Dame through CFP Administration, LLC.
Beyond that, expanding the playoff to 16 teams just weeks before kickoff would be a logistical impossibility.
Still, you can hardly fault Pavia for giving it a shot.
About Dave Kelsey
Bets on sports stuff.