Fernando Mendoza’s next snap could be with the Las Vegas Raiders.
The 2025 Heisman Trophy winner announced Friday that he would declare for the 2026 NFL Draft. Mendoza is widely expected to be the No. 1 overall pick in April after he led Indiana to a 16-0 season and a win in the national championship game over Miami.
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Mendoza rushed for a touchdown in the 27-21 win over the Hurricanes. It’s a play that immediately became the most famous in Indiana football history as it provided the winning margin in the Hoosiers’ first national title.
Mendoza admitted after the game that he was initially surprised by the defensive coverage Miami was showing prior to his TD run.
“We called the quarterback draw and we were hoping they’d do a [cover] 2 Tampa drop eight where they basically kind of like defend in front of the line, it being fourth-and-5 and us likely to throw the ball in the red zone,” Mendoza told ESPN after the game. “We were anticipating them, ‘Hey let’s drop back, let’s make Mendoza throw in a tight window to one of his stud receivers’ which, you know, is a good thought. However they didn’t come out in that.
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“They came out in something that was a little bit of that, a little bit not and … play clock rolling down, I’m like, ‘Screw it, here we go.’ I see half the field going zone, half the field going man, I’m like, ‘Wow, if it’s man I’m supposed to throw it, if it’s zone I’m supposed to run it so I’m like, ‘You know what, screw it, I’m gonna run it myself, I’m going to die on that field,’ and we got in.”
It was Mendoza’s 48th touchdown of the season. He threw for 41 and added seven more on the ground while completing 72% of his passes and throwing for over 3,500 yards with just six interceptions.
The Cal transfer was phenomenal in his only season at Indiana. He joined the Hoosiers after spending two years at Cal and had five games with more touchdowns than incompletions. Before he was 16-of-27 passing for 186 yards in the title game, Mendoza had thrown eight touchdown passes to just five incompletions across Indiana’s first two playoff games.
Mendoza’s announcement was merely a formality in the days after Indiana’s win. The Hoosiers had telegraphed his NFL intentions when the transfer portal window was open by signing TCU QB Josh Hoover. Hoover spent four seasons at TCU and has one year of eligibility remaining.
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Las Vegas Raiders need a quarterback
Mendoza is considered the clear top quarterback in the 2026 draft after Oregon’s Dante Moore announced that he would return to school for the 2026 season. And it just so happens that the Raiders are in desperate need of better quarterback play.
[More on the Raiders: Las Vegas team feed]
Las Vegas went 3-14 in 2025 and clinched the No. 1 overall pick with a loss to the New York Giants in Week 17. After Pete Carroll was hired to be the team’s coach ahead of the season, the Raiders traded for former Seattle Seahawks QB Geno Smith with the hope that Smith could replicate what he had done over the past three seasons with the Seahawks.
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That didn’t happen. Smith was 302-of-448 passing for 3,025 yards and threw 17 interceptions in 15 games. That was two more than any other QB threw all season.
Carroll was fired after the season and Smith’s future with the franchise is especially unclear after the 2026 season. He has a $26.5 million cap hit this upcoming season as part of a two-year extension he signed with the franchise. But Las Vegas can release Smith after the 2026 season and leave no dead money on the team’s salary cap for the 2027 season.
If (or when) Mendoza is taken at No. 1 overall, he’ll be the third quarterback to win the national title and the Heisman in the same season before being picked first in the NFL Draft along with Cam Newton and Joe Burrow.
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Here’s what Charles McDonald had to say about Mendoza in Yahoo Sports’ most recent mock draft:
The Raiders need a quarterback. Mendoza is the best one in the draft. Easy. He fits the profile of a top-10 pick with his ability to run the offense at a high level, strong arm talent and enough mobility to keep plays alive under duress. No one is confusing him for a Drake Maye- or Josh Allen-level athlete, but he’s not the stiff many have made him out to be. This is a fine and logical pick for the Raiders.
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