Vanderbilt defensive ends coach Jovan Haye is back in his former football home this week, putting in a very different kind of work week than when he played on the Tampa Bay Buccaneers defensive line from 2006 to 2008. The one thing that will be exactly the same: his visit to Kwane Doster’s grave site.

It was a weekly excursion back then, on Fridays after practice concluded. And Haye didn’t just pay respects to his close friend and Vanderbilt teammate, who was shot dead Dec. 26, 2004, in his hometown of Tampa. He would spend time chatting, reminiscing, telling stories from inside the locker room of the team Doster dreamed of playing for after college.

“I told him we were gonna win a Super Bowl,” Haye said, “and I promised to give his mom my ring.”

The Super Bowl didn’t happen. But Haye and Doster’s mother, Kelly, have stayed in touch over the years, and Kelly has been invited to practice and with other family members to Wednesday’s ReliaQuest Bowl between the No. 14 Commodores (10-2) and No. 23 Iowa Hawkeyes (8-4). Which means this week is both a time to savor the greatest modern team and player (Diego Pavia) in Vanderbilt football history, and to remember its worst tragedy.

“We talk about family a lot, and this is a time to remind (the Dosters) that they are part of our family,” said Vanderbilt coach Clark Lea, who, like Haye, was a teammate and friend of Doster’s. “Time creates distance, distance removes a sense of belonging, but his people are important to us, and this is a chance to re-engage.”

It’s one last chance for Lea to coach and for Vanderbilt fans to watch Pavia, the Heisman Trophy runner-up who has given this program things it’s never had — an edge, a winning expectation, a chance to beat anyone, a great player who is reviled by opposing players and fans.

“I’m just excited to be on the field with him one more time,” Lea said of Pavia. “I’m going to savor every moment of that.”

Pavia was an instant difference maker, source of energy and beloved personality when he joined the program in 2024. In that way, he is like Doster, a significant running back recruit for coach Bobby Johnson out of Tampa Robinson High who was named SEC Freshman of the Year in 2002. Nicknamed “Dot,” he was instantly one of the most popular players on the team.

“Just a great human being with an infectious energy,” said Lea, who transferred to Vanderbilt from Belmont in 2002 and spent three seasons blocking for Doster as a fullback.

“Talent is one thing, but ‘Dot’ had a pure heart, a family guy first,” Haye said. “He was just one of those people who was so easy to talk to.”

Haye, a senior standout in 2004 and sixth-round pick of the Carolina Panthers in the 2005 NFL Draft, had a 1995 Nissan Maxima back then — this was decidedly the pre-NIL era. Doster was the one teammate he would allow to borrow it.

And Haye was the teammate who got the call early in the morning of Dec. 26, 2004, from Doster’s brother, letting him know what had happened. Haye then called Lea and several other teammates to relay the shocking news.