By the time the 2026 NFL Draft ended, Alejandro Mata’s name was never called, not once out of 257 picks. Even though he was an elite college kicker, the NFL ignored him. Now, the former Colorado kicker found a pro spot anyway with the Orlando Pirates in the IFL.

“Alejandro Mata is kicking in The IFL,” Colorado’s official football account posted on X. 

Think of the NFL Draft like a giant school roll call with 257 names to read. Every single team, from the biggest cities to the smallest markets, gets to call out a player’s name and bring them into the league. For 257 times that day, the announcer’s voice kept going: quarterbacks, linemen, speedsters, defenders, but Alejandro Mata’s name never came up. Not once. Kickers are the first to get cut from draft boards, even when they’ve made more field goals than almost anyone in their school’s history. It’s like being the best singer in your town’s talent show, but the judges only care about dancers.

Alejandro Mata is headed to the Orlando Pirates of the Indoor Football League, another chapter in a football journey where talent still gets a chance. The IFL isn’t the NFL, but it’s real professional football, the kind where kickers like Mata can prove they belong when the biggest league says no. For undrafted players, leagues like this become the proving ground where careers get rebuilt, one kick at a time. 

This is a deserving opportunity for this Honduras-born soccer player who accidentally discovered he could boot footballs over school buildings. For Alejandro Mata, this is another opportunity to keep kicking and a reminder that professional football exists outside the NFL.

A name like Alejandro Mata still stands out because history shows football hasn’t opened its doors wide to Latino athletes. According to AP data from 2022, Latinos made up only 3.4% of NCAA Division I football players. Raised partly in Panama and later Georgia, he knew the odds before he ever kicked his first college field goal. When the NFL draft board sat down with 257 picks to make, players with names like his have historically been the first to get passed over, regardless of how reliable their leg might be.

His father introduced Alejandro Mata to sports while growing up in Honduras and Panama. It was soccer at first until his eighth-grade P.E. teacher watched him blast five footballs over the school and decided his future for him. By the time the family settled in Buford, Georgia, he had become an elite kicking prospect. He won two state championships at Buford High School, traveled constantly to camps with his father, and chased opportunities relentlessly. 

Still, the recruiting world barely noticed until Deion Sanders stepped in with a Jackson State offer. Alejandro Mata didn’t hesitate and committed on the same day he received the offer. 

“Having that relationship with him has always meant a lot,” he said about Deion Sanders. “Having his trust, having that feeling, knowing that Coach Prime is behind you no matter what happens, he’ll have your back, that definitely helps my mental state. That helps me perform in games.”

Deion Sanders genuinely trusted Alejandro Mata from the beginning. At Jackson State, he became one of the SWAC’s most reliable kickers, hitting 12 of 13 field goals and 50 of 51 extra points. He even made his kicker a translator for team speeches early in his Jackson State career.

“He made me a translator at Jackson State for that first game,” Mata recalled. “And then beating Florida A&M at the Hard Rock Stadium and being able to translate the speech to Spanish, it was a great feeling.”

Then came Boulder. 

Alejandro Mata found his footing at Colorado

When Deion Sanders told the country to either “elevate or terminate,” Alejandro Mata elevated with him. He turned into one of the most dependable kickers Colorado has ever had. He finished his career with 204 points, ninth all-time at Colorado. He set the school record for career field goal percentage at 81.5% among kickers with at least 20 attempts and added 103 straight extra points. 

Overall, across Jackson State and Colorado, Alejandro Mata converted 42 of 50 field goals and 154 of 157 PATs. But most NFL franchises would rather recycle veterans or sign undrafted kickers cheaply than spend draft capital. So after declaring for the draft in January, he waited through seven rounds and heard nothing, not because of talent but because of the brutal football reality. But now, he found another proving ground with the Orlando Pirates.  

Alejandro Mata’s story already outgrew the draft, anyway. From an overlooked recruit to Colorado record-holder and from an undrafted prospect to the IFL, that’s persistence winning again.