{"id":699488,"date":"2026-01-23T18:18:17","date_gmt":"2026-01-23T18:18:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/699488\/"},"modified":"2026-01-23T18:18:17","modified_gmt":"2026-01-23T18:18:17","slug":"heisman-winner-fernando-mendoza-declares-for-nfl-draft-likely-to-go-no-1-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/699488\/","title":{"rendered":"Heisman winner Fernando Mendoza declares for NFL draft, likely to go No. 1"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"text | article-text\">(Gray News) &#8211; Heisman Trophy winner Fernando Mendoza announced Friday morning that he is declaring his intent for the 2026 NFL draft. <\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Mendoza made a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/reel\/DT2jcuRAJud\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/reel\/DT2jcuRAJud\/\">post on Instagram<\/a> saying, \u201cLet\u2019s get to work. I\u2019m humbled to announce that I am officially declaring for the 2026 NFL Draft!\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">The Indiana quarterback led the Hoosiers to an undefeated season, complete with a national-title game win over Miami.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"figure-img img-fluid mx-auto d-block\" alt=\"Indiana quarterback Fernando Mendoza (15) holds the trophy after Indiana defeated Miami in a...\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/1769192297_996_6F2CBDCOSJGQ7M7EY7O74ANPTQ.jpg\" width=\"980\" height=\"551\" \/>Indiana quarterback Fernando Mendoza (15) holds the trophy after Indiana defeated Miami in a College Football Playoff national championship game, Monday, Jan. 19, 2026, in Miami Gardens, Fla.(Lynne Sladky | AP Photo\/Lynne Sladky)<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Listed at 6-foot-5 and 225 pounds by Indiana, the QB threw for 3,535 yards, 41 TDs and six interceptions on 72% completions and ran for 276 yards and seven more scores in 16 games, according to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nfl.com\/news\/indiana-qb-fernando-mendoza-announces-intention-to-enter-2026-nfl-draft\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.nfl.com\/news\/indiana-qb-fernando-mendoza-announces-intention-to-enter-2026-nfl-draft\">NFL.com<\/a>. <\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">With the Las Vegas Raiders needing a strong quarterback contender with the No. 1 draft pick, Mendoza has a good chance of being selected first in the draft. <\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Oregon quarterback Dante Moore was also considered a potential No. 1 pick, but he opted to return to the Ducks for one more college season, according to ESPN. <\/p>\n<p class=\"copyright |\">Copyright 2026 Gray Local Media, Inc. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n<p><script async src=\"\/\/www.instagram.com\/embed.js\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"(Gray News) &#8211; Heisman Trophy winner Fernando Mendoza announced Friday morning that he is declaring his intent for&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":699489,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[4],"tags":[4955,331,3619,7,10341,2638,26781,6,15],"class_list":["post-699488","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nfl-draft","tag-2026-nfl-draft","tag-college-football","tag-fernando-mendoza","tag-football","tag-heisman-trophy","tag-hoosiers","tag-indiana-football","tag-nfl","tag-nfl-draft"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/115945794588184993","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/699488","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=699488"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/699488\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/699489"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=699488"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=699488"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=699488"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}