Fernando Mendoza’s football journey will continue in the National Football League with the Las Vegas Raiders.
The Raiders took the Indiana quarterback first overall in the 2026 NFL Draft on Thursday, making official what had been a formality for months. Mendoza, the 2025 Heisman Trophy winner, becomes the first Big Ten player to be taken No. 1 since the Miami Dolphins selected Michigan offensive tackle Jake Long with the top pick in 2008.
Surprisingly, Mendoza isn’t the Hoosiers’ first No. 1 overall pick. That honor belongs to fullback Corbett Davis all the way back in 1938.
Thursday was the culmination of a whirlwind of a last 16 months for the Miami native. A three-star recruit in the class of 2022, Mendoza spent the first three seasons of his college career at Cal, redshirting as a true freshman. When he committed to Curt Cignetti and Indiana out of the transfer portal in Dec. 2024, he did so as the ACC’s third-leading passer.
With Mendoza behind center and the hard-nosed Cignetti on the sideline, Indiana didn’t just better their historic (at the time) 11-2 record from 2024. It ran the table. The Hoosiers became just the second program in college football history to finish a season 16-0.
As fate would have it, Mendoza led Indiana to the College Football Playoff National Championship at Hard Rock Stadium — just over 20 miles from his alma mater of Columbus High School — against the Miami Hurricanes, the team he grew up rooting for as a child.
Now, he’s in the NFL, where he’ll team up with first-year head coach Klint Kubiak as they look to turn the fortunes of a team that went 3-14 in 2025 while missing the playoffs for a fourth straight season.
As for the SEC, will players like LSU‘s Mansoor Delane and Georgia‘s Monroe Freeling need to wait long? Here’s the current Kalshi market for SEC players being taken in Round 1.
Sydney is an Atlanta-based journalist who has covered everything from SEC and ACC football to MLS, the U.S. men's national soccer team and professional tennis. His work has appeared on such platforms as SB Nation, Cox Media Group and FanSided.
