Let Me Feel the Power of the Lord, Eli
Eli Stowers will or will not hit Tyler Warren/Harold Fannin numbers in 2025
(Eli) Do you accept Jesus Christ as your saviour?
Yes I do.
- Daniel Plainview, There Will be Blood (2007)
Eli is probably the most important person who's brought me to Christ.
Those were the words of Vanderbilt QB Diego Pavia last November leading up to a game vs. the Commodores’ in-state rival Tennessee Volunteers. Vandy, a proverbial doormat in the SEC, was coming off a two-game losing streak against LSU and South Carolina, and would ultimately fall just short against the Vols that weekend.
However, through the industry of Pavia and his trusted sidekick, TE Eli Stowers, the Commodores enjoyed a rather fruitful October (by their standards), that saw them defeat a program once considered to be the mightiest foe in all of CFB, the Alabama Crimson Tide, and nearly did the same to the Texas Longhorns a few weeks later.
OK, what the hell—where did these guys come from? Is what I imagine many casual college fans pondered either to themselves or out loud during this time period. Pavia, who I’m also going to refer to as ‘DP’ from time to time in this article, came over after an illustrious career at New Mexico State.
Stowers was a more highly regarded recruit, initiating his college football career at Texas A&M, where he played the 2021 and 2022 seasons. He then joined DP at New Mexico State for one year in 2023 and followed him over to Tennessee last offseason.
One of the notable components of Stowers’ profile at NMS was that he was frequently used as a rusher in addition to his receiving volume. He wasn’t inundated with targets per se, but he did finish with 51 over the course of 15 games. In fact, he didn’t even see a single target until Oct. 4, despite playing in all of the games in September.
So I suppose it shouldn’t have been all that surprising that his connection with DP continued in the SEC. Here is Pavia himself speaking about his teammate:
“He’s writing his own journey for real,” Pavia said. “Keeping Eli is one of the biggest pieces for me. He was my safety blanket last year.”
“As far as Eli, there’s nothing bad to say about that kid. When people see him workout and do his testing numbers, he's gonna jump a 43-inch vertical, he powercleans 365, he’s going to run a 4.4 or 4.5. He’s gonna jump off the map.”
“Even if he would’ve went [to the draft] this year, I believe he would have went first round just because of his testing numbers and you see his route running, he’s always open.”
“It’s crazy to feel like I’m playing with a first-rounder, you know what I mean? Our coaches make fun of us like ‘Hey Diego, did you make Eli or did Eli make you?’ And I don’t know what to say to that,” Pavia said.
Pavia also noted that Stowers continues to bring him and other teammates closer to Christ this offseason. I’m starting to wonder if this isn’t the same guy who played ‘Eli’ in the classic Daniel Day-Lewis film There Will Be Blood. I’m just waiting for Pavia to tell Sark that he’s “drinking his milkshake” after an upset victory this fall sees the Commodores replace Texas in the CFP rankings… well, one can dream.
I also like to think that when head coach Clark Lea loses, rather than shake hands gracefully with other coaches, he just barks some combination of “you’re a bastard from a basket” and/or “you’re just an orphan” at them. In fact, there’d be some great irony in the context of this article should Eli and DP knock off the oil giant Texas Longhorns this fall.
It’s good for college football to have cinderella stories like this emerge. But now, at least in a CFF context, Stowers is anything but an underdog. In fact, he’s the first TE taken in many drafts, and always one of the top five taken.
For good reason—my man averaged 11.5 PPG last season, but had single game highs of 27, 26 and 17 points. He was very much a Jekyll and Hyde type of figure in 2024, as he scored less than 10 points in seven of his regular season games.
That made Stowers a particularly good asset to hold in bestball formats. Less so in standard leagues, but even then, because TE is so fickle, he remained an effective player.
Stowers’ breakout year is all the more surprising when considering the staff he plays under. Despite Stowers’ solid 2024 campaign, both Lea’s and OC Tim Beck’s TE averages sit at 3.99 and 4.38 PPG, respectively. Those numbers should provide an idea to the reader of just how bad the other TE seasons were under these coaches.
Tight end, I think more so than other positions, is the one where talent supersedes the system usually when a breakout occurs, since it just isn’t common to have a system feature the position heavily.
That was sort of true in 2024 when looking at the top producers, Harold Fannin from Bowling Green and Tyler Warren from Penn State. PSU’s program has traditionally been friendly to the TEs, but the new OC, Andy Kotelnicki, had not been at his previous stops. Scott Lefleur at BGSU had some notable production in the past at TE, but nothing of the sort that we saw from Fannin last season.
The Case For Stowers to Hit ‘ELITE’ TE Numbers in 2025
Fannin may be a good case study to observe regarding what could be with Stowers. In 2023, Fannin finished the year with 44 receptions, 623 yards, and six TDs in 11 games. Stowers, in 2024, finished the year with 49 receptions, 638 yards and five scores. He also had six rushes for seven yards, while Fannin had 14 attempts for over 40 yards.
Fannin played on a team that was going to be overmatched at least a few times with matchups including Texas A&M and Penn State. He actually outperformed Warren in that game believe it or not.
The SEC, in its infinite wisdom, decided to run the same schedules back this year from the last, with the only difference being the reversal of which team plays at home. Unfortunately for Vandy that means they will be playing Alabama, Texas, LSU, and other programs that could have strong defences like South Carolina, Auburn and Tennessee. At the very least, all of these programs have at least one dominant individual player on defence that could make things difficult for Vandy.
On the other hand, when Vandy played Alabama and Texas last year, Stowers scored 17 and 12 points, respectively. Tennessee, LSU and Kentucky made up his worst games of the season.
It’s not a stretch to suggest that in year three, DP and Stowers could level up their chemistry and increase their connection on the field. While they may still lose most of their games, Vandy proved last year that they could at least remain competitive with their opponents in conference (a pivotal piece in the puzzle of their players becoming CFF-relevant), which is all that is required in my opinion.
It’s also fairly likely that this will be Stowers’ last season with the Commodores so I’d imagine the staff will seek to get every drop of value out of him, both on the field and with some generous stat padding when possible to aid in his own individual awards campaigns/NFL draft stock. It goes without saying that having a skill player go in the first round next year can be a boon for a program like this.
I’ll also point out that—while Stowers’ rushing usage took a huge step back with Vanderbilt—a common thread of some of the TEs that have gone nuclear in the past is abnormal usage patterns, oftentimes including rushing in their repertoire. That was the case for both Warren and Fannin last season.
The Case Against Stowers
This argument is easier to make. Despite being a utility man at New Mexico State, the Vanderbilt staff didn’t choose to use him in such a way in 2024. His rush attempts fizzled down to six compared to 29 the year before. That doesn’t mean that they won’t bring that aspect of his game back to life in 2025, but his new situation so far has used him as more of a traditional TE.
The next strike against Stowers isn’t personal; rather, the team itself sometimes struggles to score in its own conference. As alluded to earlier, they were much better than average last year. However, on the whole, Vanderbilt historically is a team that struggles in-conference. Fannin and Warren both played on winning clubs last season when they each went psychotic on the stat sheet.
This staff at Vanderbilt has no history outside of Stowers of facilitating an elite TE in CFF. This, to me, is the least of the concerns, as we already saw Stowers perform at a good level with these coaches in 2024.
Stowers has also reportedly been banged up in the offseason and I’m not sure if he’s a full participant in fall camp currently. ◾
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