This is an opinion column.

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Vanderbilt quarterback Diego Pavia is officially a folk hero of Southeastern Conference football lore.

He transferred from New Mexico State for this season, and brought all his friends, and now the Commodores are winners against Auburn and Alabama in the same season since 1955.

First Pavia and Vanderbilt shocked the world with the 40-35 victory against then-No.1 Alabama. Turns out that game wasn’t a fluke. Pavia’s legend grew larger still on the first Saturday of November with the Commodores’ hard-earned 17-7 upset of Auburn.

“Today was an ugly win, but we found a way to win,” Pavia said.

And that sobering perspective of a Vanderbilt victory over any Auburn team pretty much sums up the state of football on The Plains under current Auburn coach Hugh Freeze.

These days, Vanderbilt doesn’t have to play its best game to take down the Tigers in storied Jordan-Hare. The Dores just have to slug it out by gaining a grand total of 227 yards and punching Auburn in the face when it mattered.

“Body shots, body shots, body shots,” Pavia said after the game, “and eventually it’s going to hit. And that’s what happened.”

Vanderbilt won the game with rugged defense, a touchdown pass in the first half and then excellent plays on special teams. Mistakes by Auburn helped, too, but the Commodores punted eight times. It was turn-of-the-century football at its finest, and I don’t mean the 21st.

In a different era of college football, a loss by Auburn (3-6, 1-5 SEC) at home to Vanderbilt might trigger an early exit for the current coach. This is a new age, however, and Vanderbilt is no longer the worst team in the league. Auburn is in the running, though, and would be in the basement if not for Mississippi State and Kentucky.

To make things sting even more for the Tigers, Vanderbilt’s quarterback called his shot before taking the field and then led the Commodores in a celebratory locker-room rendition of “Swag Surfin’” after the victory.

It’s Auburn’s fans and players who celebrate together with that song after victories at home. Not this time and not against an SEC opponent since a 27-13 victory against Mississippi State over a year ago.

How bad is Auburn?

Pavia has more SEC victories at Jordan-Hare in the last two years than Auburn quarterback Payton Thorne.

Pavia even taunted Auburn on social media before the game. Afterwards, I asked him to explain what he meant by a post on InstaGram directed at the Tigers.

“It was a Little Baby lyric,” said Pavia, pausing during his postgame news conference to look the words up on his phone.

Because accuracy is key.

“It said, ‘They thought I got lucky last time, Eff it. I’m back on that [expletive] again.”

Naturally, I asked Pavia for a proper annotation. What did that mean for him?

“They thought I got lucky,” Pavia said. “You heard what they were saying in the interviews. They thought I got lucky last time. Just to prove it twice, I’m that type of guy. Just to come out and give it all I got on Saturdays.”

Earlier, Pavia celebrated the win on the field by holding up three fingers. It stood for his 3-0 record against teams coached by Freeze. As the quarterback of New Mexico State, Pavia won at Liberty in 2022. He then led the Aggies against Auburn in 2023.

“A lot of people didn’t take a chance on me,” Pavia said. “They’re just another team that didn’t, so I just wanted to make them pay for what they did.”

Pavia confirmed that Freeze never talked to him while he was in the portal. Freeze has said in the past that he didn’t want to spend money on a quarterback for this season. That decision is coming back to haunt him week after week. Imagine Pavia at Auburn. The Tigers would at least be going to a bowl.

Vanderbilt is now 6-3 overall on the season and 3-2 in the SEC. After the game, players celebrated their school’s first taste of bowl eligibility since 2018 by pretending to roll strikes down the grass of Pat Dye Field. Some of Auburn’s players didn’t appreciate all the celebrating, and confronted Vandy’s players at midfield.

Pavia called it “football nonsense.” Apparently Auburn’s defenders were trying to explain how they shut down Vanderbilt’s offense.

In truth, it was Vanderbilt’s defense that did all the talking on the field. Last week, Auburn running back Jarquez Hunter rushed for 278 yards at Kentucky. Vanderbilt limited him 50 yards on 12 carries.

“Their best player, he had the game of his career last week, everyone in the nation was talking about him,” Vanderbilt safety CJ Taylor said. “Any time you hold a great player to 50 yards it’s a great day.

“All this tradition they have in this building, I don’t see Bo Jackson out there running the ball. So, it’s special.”

Jackson is an SEC legend, and Auburn witnessed another in the making here at Jordan-Hare.

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Joseph Goodman is the lead sports columnist for the Alabama Media Group, and author of the book “We Want Bama: A Season of Hope and the Making of Nick Saban’s Ultimate Team.”