Clock ticking for underclassmen … College underclassmen planing on entering the 2026 NFL now have just 10 days to make their decision with the deadline looming on January 14th. and needless to say, the players the NFL is most interested in hearing from are the QBs as none of whom are generally considered to be the top 4 prospects at that position – Fernando Mendoza of Indiana, Oregon’s Dante Moore, Ty Simpson of Alabama and Oklahoma’s John Mateer – have declared for the draft to date. However, the league did get a pretty loud hint from the Hoosiers’ Mendoza, who is generally thought to be both the top QB prospect, as well as the #1 guy overall for this year’s draft, that he will in fact be entering the draft when TCU’s John Hoover, who was 4th in the country in passing yards per game, this past season, committed to join the Indiana program thru the transfer portal. Clearly, Hoover’s not going there if there was any hint that Mendoza would be returning. On the other hand, its been pretty much crickets from the other three. In fact, the only underclassmen to announce of late are Alabama junior All-America C Parker Brailsford who will be entering the draft, while Kansas State MLB Austin Romaine is not as he’ll be transferring to Texas Tech. In fact, the Red Raiders may have taken the early lead in the transfer portal race as they also signed former Cincinnati QB Brendan Sorsby, arguably the top player in the portal, along with rising DE Trey White from San Diego State.
