{"id":690505,"date":"2026-01-20T06:03:22","date_gmt":"2026-01-20T06:03:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/690505\/"},"modified":"2026-01-20T06:03:22","modified_gmt":"2026-01-20T06:03:22","slug":"top-prospects-in-national-championship-game","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/690505\/","title":{"rendered":"Top prospects in National Championship game"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jan. 19, 2026, 8:48 a.m. ET<\/p>\n

The College Football National Championship is being played on Monday between Indiana and Miami.<\/a><\/p>\n

So who are the top 2026 NFL draft prospects playing in this game, and which ones should be on the Jacksonville Jaguars<\/a>‘ radar?<\/p>\n

The Jaguars do not own a first-round draft pick this year after trading it away in the 2025 draft to move up and acquire Travis Hunter.<\/p>\n

So Jacksonville won’t be making their first pick until the second round. However, GM James Gladstone does still have 11 picks in total, including four within the top 100.<\/p>\n

As far as which positions the Jaguars may have to prioritize addressing in this year’s draft, NFL.com recently<\/a> put together the top five projected needs<\/a> for Jacksonville.<\/p>\n

Expert NFL picks: Exclusive betting insights only at USA TODAY.<\/a><\/p>\n

For a full breakdown of the Jaguars’ upcoming offseason, you can find that here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Top NFL draft prospects in Miami vs. Indiana<\/a> game<\/p>\n

With help from\u00a0Pro Football Focus’<\/a>\u00a0big board, here are the top draft prospects from the Miami vs. Indiana game.<\/p>\n

(4) QB Fernando Mendoza, Indiana(6) Rueben Bain Jr., ED, Miami(20) Francis Mauigoa, OT, Miami(38) WR Elijah Sarratt, Indiana(61) Keionte Scott, CB, Miami(72) Akheem Mesidor, ED, Miami(75) CJ Daniels, WR, Miami(88) OT Carter Smith, Indiana(92) WR Omar Cooper Jr., Indiana(96) CB D’Angelo Ponds, Indiana(184) Zxavian Harris, IDL, Ole Miss(227) De’Zhaun Stribling, WR, Ole Miss<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jan. 19, 2026, 8:48 a.m. ET The College Football National Championship is being played on Monday between Indiana…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":690506,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2060],"tags":[95878,7699,7,212,125,2401,213,6,31186,95933,95882,95930,96027,98165,98164,96058,95936,96098,95896,95888,95895,95899,96099,96177,95883,98258,95881],"class_list":["post-690505","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-jacksonville-jaguars","tag-accessfree","tag-fl","tag-football","tag-jacksonville","tag-jacksonville-jaguars","tag-jacksonvillejaguars","tag-jaguars","tag-nfl","tag-sstssportsnfljaguars","tag-sstsnjaguars","tag-tagamerican-football","tag-tagbig-ten-conference-football","tag-tagcollege-sports","tag-tagindiana-hoosiers","tag-tagindiana-hoosiers-football","tag-tagjacksonville","tag-tagjacksonville-jaguars","tag-tagmississippi-rebels","tag-tagnational-sports","tag-tagnfl","tag-tagnfl-hub","tag-tagoverall-neutral","tag-tagsec-conference-football","tag-tagsmg-breaking-wire","tag-tagsports-news","tag-tagtravis-hunter","tag-typestory"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":"Validation failed: Text character limit of 500 exceeded"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/690505","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=690505"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/690505\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/690506"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=690505"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=690505"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=690505"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}