Feb. 7, 2026, 12:33 p.m. ET<\/p>\n
As we move further away from the end of the 2025 college football season, which was capped off with a historic national championship win for the Indiana Hoosiers<\/a>, it’s time to start focusing on the upcoming NFL draft. With the 2026 NFL combine taking place in a matter of weeks at the end of February, we will start to see Pro Day dates leak out in the near future.<\/p>\n With that information, we can start to get an idea of how certain players are going to structure their pre-draft processes leading up to April. One of the most notable players to watch is Indiana<\/a> quarterback Fernando Mendoza, the winner of the 2025 Heisman Trophy, and the projected No. 1 overall pick in the upcoming draft.<\/p>\n While Mendoza could likely still be the No. 1 pick even without going through the song and dance of the pre-draft process, he revealed this past week that he plans to throw at Indiana’s Pro Day this spring, but likely not at the combine.<\/p>\n Why? Because he owes it to his teammates, who are trying to lock up their NFL draft status, to help them put on a show.<\/p>\n “I want to make sure that I give my guys the best chance,” Mendoza said on The Pat McAfee Show. “So I want to throw at Pro Day with my guys, my running backs, and be there with the boys. The Combine \u2014 I don’t think throwing is going to be a priority, just because it’s such a quick turnaround.”<\/p>\n Need a news break? Check out the all new PLAY hub with puzzles, games and more!<\/a><\/p>\n Guys like Elijah Sarratt, Omar Cooper Jr., Kaelon Black, and Roman Hemby will all be working to earn early-round draft grades, so a strong Pro Day showing would help that cause. Fortunately, it looks like they will have their Heisman winner alongside them on the big day.<\/p>\n Contact\/Follow@College_Wire<\/a> on X and@College_Wires<\/a> on Threads. Like our page on Facebook<\/a> to follow ongoing coverage of college sports news, notes, and opinions.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Feb. 7, 2026, 12:33 p.m. ET As we move further away from the end of the 2025 college…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":736651,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[95878,7,6,15,102328,96940,95882,96219,95930,96027,95893,98232,98165,98164,95896,95906,95883,95881],"class_list":{"0":"post-736650","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nfl-draft","8":"tag-accessfree","9":"tag-football","10":"tag-nfl","11":"tag-nfl-draft","12":"tag-sstssportscollegecollege-football","13":"tag-sstsncollege-football","14":"tag-tagamerican-football","15":"tag-tagbig-10-hub","16":"tag-tagbig-ten-conference-football","17":"tag-tagcollege-sports","18":"tag-tagfacebook","19":"tag-tagheisman-trophy","20":"tag-tagindiana-hoosiers","21":"tag-tagindiana-hoosiers-football","22":"tag-tagnational-sports","23":"tag-tagoverall-positive","24":"tag-tagsports-news","25":"tag-typestory"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/116031750709940280","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/736650","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=736650"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/736650\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/736651"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=736650"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=736650"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=736650"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}